Opportunities and challenges of rural practice: managing self amid ambiguity.

Living and practicing psychology in a small, rural community has opportunities and challenges. We describe the context of rural communities and identify several of those challenges and opportunities. A case study demonstrates the influence of multigenerational involvement, complex professional and social situations, and the potential difficulties facing the responsible clinician. We suggest both a theoretical perspective and specific procedures for treating prototypical cases in a rural practice.

Overlap among clinical, counseling, and school psychology: implications for the profession and Combined-Integrated training.

Health care providers within psychology currently fall into three dominant practice areas: clinical, counseling, and school psychology. This article reviews data from four different sources-archival descriptions, training curricula, internship and employment outcomes, and professional activities-to examine the overlap among the three practice areas. Archival descriptions revealed substantial similarities, with smaller but interesting differences. A comparison of actual curricula from 10 programs accredited in each of the three practice areas yielded similar findings: Programs across the three practice areas were much more similar than different. Within-practice area variations among programs were nearly as large as across-practice area differences. We briefly review the professional activities of clinical, counseling, and school psychologists, again demonstrating considerable similarity. We conclude by explaining implications for doctoral training programs, internships settings, and professional credentialing.