A few people who are interested in some combination of clinical psychology, disaster studies and/or terroism have contacted me because of posts on this blog about this transdiciplinary area. For what its worth, here is part of an email I sent to one person who was interested and agreed to share this material (I figure might as well share it with all interested at once). This is just my personal take on things, no guarantee this will work for you:
…Let me begin to tackle the second question I posed for you, which is about specialization in the areas you have interest in. First of all, be clear up front that tackling disaster mental health and dealing with counter-terrorism issues are very different problems. At first, I was hoping to be able to do both, and I think the faculty that I was working with were also hoping that the NCPT would be able to address both (in fact the original name of the center was NCDPT — with the “D” for disasters). Over time, what we realized is that we could not really address both problems adequately. Some of the faculty who were more interested in the psychology of terrorism and counter-terrorism formed a new center called CIPERT (www.cipert.org), while faculty and students interested in disater mental health and disaster management stayed with NCPT (even though the title of the center directly says “TERRORISM” and not disasters!). For me, the relationship between treatment of PTSD and disaster related mental health problems made the most sense, and I was also interested in the logistical aspects of disasters, so staying with the NCPT made the most sense.
If I were you (or if I were to start the process all over again), I guess I would try to employ one of three overall strategies when searching for a clinical program that also supports disaster and/or terrorism as research areas:
Option 1
1. Look online and in the clinical psychology insider’s guide book for clinical psychology programs that offer a specialization in disaster psychology, military psychology, or terrorism (the program at University of South Dakota is a good example)
Option 2
1. The Department of Homeland Security has set up about 6 Centers of Excellence at various universities. Two of these focus on the behavioral sciences (the primary one is at the University of Maryland – Baltimore).
2. See if these schools also offer a clinical degree
3. Talk to them about combining your clinical interests with the activities at the Centers
4. A list of all of the DHS Centers of Excellence and a brief description of each can be found here: http://www.dhs.gov/files/programs/editorial_0498.shtm
Option 3
1. Begin examining all of the universities that have some form of a disaster studies or terrorism studies program
2. See if these schools also offer a clinical psychology degree
3. Try to create a customized program that gets at your interests
4. A good example of this would be the University of Denver Graduate School of Professional Psychology, which offers both a PsyD in clinical psychology and an M.A. in International Disaster Psychology — you might be able to take some of the M.A. classes as part of the doctorate. http://www.du.edu/gspp/about-gspp/what-is-gspp.html
Having said all of that, NCPT worked very well for me Palo Alto University is a small, private professional school that offers both a PhD in clinical psychology and a PsyD (the PsyD is offered in conjunction with Stanford University). As I mentioned, PAU is a feeder school for one of the major VA run PTSD treatment centers, and gaining treatment in PTSD is central to being able to treat disaster related mental health problems — so for me this worked very well. The NCPT runs the Palo Alto Medical Reserve Corps — a federally funded disaster mental health program, etc. Also, note that for me the timing worked out well, but as someone just coming into a program, looking at who will likely serve on your dissertation committee and if they will retire before you complete your degree is of critical importance.
I hope this helps. If you want to read more about my experiences trying to put together a customized training program for myself (in the days just after 9/11 when there wasn’t much available), take a look at this: http://www.metaversityproject.org/metaversity/disaster-psychology/. If you have other questions, let me know and I will do my best to answer them. It has been a difficult, sometimes lonely journey for me as there are not many people interested in this sub-specialization, so I am hoping to change that by encouraging those who are interested to enter the field.
Good luck.
