MSW or MFT to PhD. Psychology?

[greentea]

Hi, I have been accepted by both MSW and MFT programs (Educational Psychology and Counseling), and I am deciding which way to go. If, in the future, I decide to pursue PhD. in Psychology, can I do it with the MSW? I will appreciate your advice!

Edited March 26, 2010 by greentea

[cogneuroforfun]

Neither one should particularly help or hurt you, unless you do amazingly well or amazingly poorly or if you don't already have a background in the material. Whichever one aligns with your interests better will probably be better, as that will likely be the area in which you'll want to do PhD research. So if you're more interested in close relationships, for example, the MFT may be better, while if you're interested in developmental stuff, the MSW may help slightly more. Either way, no one's going to make a big deal if you got an MFT and decided to do a PhD in some developmental area, or vice versa with the MSW. It is very easy to simply talk about how your interests evolved as you got more experience, etc etc.

[juilletmercredi]

You can do it with an MSW - I remember talking to several professors during my admissions process because I was considering getting one myself, and they shared that they'd had students in the past who came in with MSWs. There's also a student in my current program who got his MFT before coming here (PhD in psychology). It's just that likely none of the credits will transfer, so you can still expect to spend 5-6 years in your average PhD program, but that's the way it goes with any MA/MS in psychology usually.