What is the difference between counseling and clinical psychology programs?
The variability in both clinical and counseling programs is so tremendous that there is almost no good answer to this question. Clinical psychology programs may be slightly more competitive, but this is changing and of course depends greatly on which programs you’re talking about. Some counseling psych programs are more oriented to training academic counselors for college/university counseling centers. Some clinical psychology programs might be more focused on training psychotherapists than academic counselors. But one strong claim that can be safely made is that almost all clinical psychology PhD programs emphasize research more than clinical skills. This is also true of many counseling psychology PhD programs. The clinical PsyD degree, on the other hand, is focused almost exclusively on psychotherapy training. It makes little sense to apply only to clinical programs or only counseling programs; applicants should carefully study programs of both kinds and identify those that best fit
