Specialty Certification in Professional Psychology

Abstract

This chapter describes essential information for the graduate student who has questions about board certification in professional psychology and its importance as a long-term objective in the student’s professional training and practice preparation. Board certification through the American Board of Professional Psychology (ABPP) is a postdoctoral credential that follows licensure as a psychologist. However, even though awarding of this designation requires graduation and the accumulation of 5 years post-licensure experience, like other important professional training milestones, it makes sense to become as knowledgeable as possible at the earliest stages of one’s career so that prerequisites can be obtained during the formative years in one’s training so that you can take advantage of opportunities when they arise that will help you to meet licensure/post-licensure ABPP requirements. If you are a graduate student this means becoming aware now of what board certification is, why it is important to the profession, the processes for obtaining board certification, and the benefits that are available to board certified psychologists. Because board certification is not required for practice as a licensed psychologist, one of the first questions to ask is whether one needs to even expend the effort to become board certified. This chapter will discuss why it is worth the effort and, in fact, why a “best-practices” psychologist really requires board certification. Support for becoming board certified through ABPP will be explained systematically around five questions: (1) What is Board Certification in Professional Psychology? (2) Why is Board Certification important? (3) What are the benefits of board certification? (4) What is the process involved in becoming Board Certified? (5) What can I do now to prepare myself for board certification?