I am planning a career change from investment banking to psychology. Any ideas,

[Confused]

opinions, suggestions? I am a commerce graduate who did my MBA in Finance in 2003. I have close to 5 years of experience post that (about 3 years with an investment bank). During most of my career, I have been unhappy with the kind of work I do. I realise I am more interested in 'people' rather than 'businesses' and would be much happier doing something meaningful even if it means less money and 'glamour'. A change to psychology means doing my masters again and writing off seven years. Would love to hear opinions and suggestions on whether this may be a sensible decision in the long run. Would also appreciate any inputs from practising psychologists on how they really find their jobs in terms of satisfcation and achieving or doing somehting meaningful, the stress levels, work hours and flexibility. I would ultimately like to do my own independent practice. Have been contemplating this move for about an year now but feel a little unsure since I have been doing somehting so completely different.

[Toadsputum]

No sense in staying in a career that you do not like. If I were you, I would consider an MSW rather then a master's degree in psych. With and MSW you open the possibility of billing insurance. It is a quick, easy and interesting degree to obtain. If your ultimate goal is private practice, you would really need a PhD if you went the psych route (unless you looked into counseling or school psych). Your background in finance and your MBA coupled with an MSW would make you a great candidate for a position in nonprofit management. You would likely find a job very easily while building clinical hours necessary to bill insurance for a private practice.

I have a master's degree in Psychology (clinical) and I am currently pursuing a PhD in School Psychology. Prior to going back to school for my PhD I worked first as a case management supervisor serving adults with mental illness and then as a family therapist working with adolescent juvenile delinquents and then as one of the supervisors in that program. All in all I have 7 years of ft experience in the psych field, not including 4 years of pt experience while I was getting my BS.

Although the work is very meaningful it becomes fairly repetitive. Most jobs that I have had were flexible to some degree, but you have to be willing to work nontraditional hours (i.e. be available on weekends and nights), but you can often comp your time and come n late or take off another day. I did not like being on call 24 hours a day which would likely be the case if you had a private practice. After working with clients for over 7 years I decided that I hated my job. That is why I am back in school for the ol' PhD...I want to try out academia.

Psych. related jobs typicaly have a high turnover. You likely will not mak a terrible amount of money, but you can certainly live comfortably. I was earning close to 95k between a ft job and a pt job when I left to go back to school. In the beginning you may take a pay cut (my first job out of college paid 26,500), but I am not sure because you also have an MBA and might be eligible for management positions, but a year or two of work experience might benefit you.

My best advice to you...before you cash in your chips and switch careers, try volunteering a couple of days per month to see if you like the human service field. There are a ton of different settings that you can work/volunteer in and you might find out that you really hate listening to people's crap (like I do).

Best of luck. If you have anymore question feel free to email.

[cindra]

I don't recommend a complete change. I think you can accomplish working with people without going through another 4-5 years of school and the expense. With your degree and experience, you could easily transition to a college teacher or open up your own business as a consultant for businesses or an advisor for the public. Self employment or teaching would be more rewarding than working for someone else. Full time college teacher=20 hours per week. If you want to have your own practice as a psychologist, you would need to get your Ph.D. in psychology (4 years), plus do at least 2,000-3,000 free work hours of internship (depending on which state you reside), plus do a dissertation. There is paperwork in dealing with the insurance companies and at present there are a significant number of people without jobs and more without insurance.
There are advertising costs and you don't exactly have a full client load the moment you open the door. You could be an industrial/organizational psychologist (master's level), but this would put you right back in a position of working for someone else, which I don't think would make you happy. You do have to consider a return on your investment of time and money. I realize that money doesn't make happiness but the lack of it, can create problems, too. I know of many unhappy people with dual degrees who end up in neither field. My best advice to you is to try obtaining a part time teaching job at local business college or community college.

[cindra]

I don't recommend a complete change. I think you can accomplish working with people without going through another 4-5 years of school and the expense. With your degree and experience, you could easily transition to a college teacher or open up your own business as a consultant for businesses or an advisor for the public. Self employment or teaching would be more rewarding than working for someone else. Full time college teacher=20 hours per week. If you want to have your own practice as a psychologist, you would need to get your Ph.D. in psychology (4 years), plus do at least 2,000-3,000 free work hours of internship (depending on which state you reside), plus do a dissertation. There is paperwork in dealing with the insurance companies and at present there are a significant number of people without jobs and more without insurance.
There are advertising costs and you don't exactly have a full client load the moment you open the door. You could be an industrial/organizational psychologist (master's level), but this would put you right back in a position of working for someone else, which I don't think would make you happy. You do have to consider a return on your investment of time and money. I realize that money doesn't make happiness but the lack of it, can create problems, too. I know of many unhappy people with dual degrees who end up in neither field. My best advice to you is to try obtaining a part time teaching job at local business college or community college.

[fifty]

I tried to do this and got burned out. I figured out that I didn't want to sit in a room listening to depressing thoughts. I ended up retiring and then starting my own very small business.

I started a PhD and a certification at the same time. In some states, anyone with an Masters, including an MBA, can do psychoanalytic psychotherapy training. There is no need to get a Psy PhD.

[Serlixalot]

Well that is quite an interesting career change....I would think anyone that can handle investment banking has to be a good listener..and that is the most important thing any of us do...so for that part of it you should be a pro...did banking have any part in reaching this decision..like realizing how many of every day society actually need theropy or institutionalising ? Just curious....seems like one stressful job...I would recomend specialty theropy it keeps the unwanted clients away...there are so many fields to specialize you can pretty much name the type you want