Psych Continuing Ed Public Blog

An alert reader who email me had “no bad comments” on her experience with some courses from Professional Development Resources at pdresources.org “you can go back later to enter your answers, having carefully considered the printout of the test that they provide while reading.”

“I have no bad comments about: Autism Spectrum Disorders – Overview
Anxiety disorders—Overview (By the way, you pay for the test on this one but the course is FREE, since it is a long article from NIMH and in the public domain.)
Bipolar Disorder – Overview”

She noted that she also received a 10% off coupon for her next order which is always nice even if you don’t get a chance to use it.

Thanks for the feedback, as always, readers you are invited to register with whatever name you’d on the right column and post away!

I was perusing a book I ordered off Amazon and it includes a card with a passcode for apparently for free CE credits if the day comes that I ever finish the book (Personality Disorders: Toward the DSM-V). The foreward, first and last chapters have all been interesting, though truthfully I haven’t read the chapters in the middle about specific personality disorders (other than the for future research ones from the DSM-IV / DSM-IV-TR of Passive-Aggressive, Sadistic and Depressive Personality Disorders). Anyway, it certainly appears to be an interesting read and through SAGE publications teaming up with per-ce.net will include CE credits. If anyone has taken the test on this one or one of their other books feel free to let us know how it went.  

Professional Development Resources sent out a brochure with “closout courses” whose prices have apparently been reduced. They also noted a $20 instant rebate on orders over $150. However, in the brochure the listed a 5% discount coupon code which is: PDR0348 -the offer for which expires 12/31/08.

Readers of the National Psychologist are aware, however, that they advertise a 10% discount code TNP10 (see http://www.pdresources.org/tnp)

To celebrate their 20 year anniversary, this month’s special at http://www.affectplus.com is 10% off of any course you choose. Order by October 31, 2008 and use the promotional code “anniversary.”

If you take a course, why not let us know what you thought of it with a quick post about it here?

As a procrastinator I decided to actually make this website as opposed to finishing my CE credits, however I just got these last CEUs in record time- If you need a few quick CEU credits one place to look is AATBS, they are cheap (for continuing ed anyway- perhaps they feel guilty for socking it to you on the licensure prep They also have 20% off all their courses till the ned of the month so my 2 credits cost a little over $14 and took nowhere near 2 hours.  I recommend going to the printable version of the test and printing out the test first. While the questions didn’t necessarily go in the order of the text as you went, there were only 12 questions and I could generally keep track of them as I went along. Do the test as you go through the materials. If at the end you’re not sure about a  question you can always use your browsers “find” function (In internet explorer go to edit and then “find on this page” and type in a search for what you’re looking for the answer to in the narrative of the text). Anyway, I took this quick one on the prevalence and effects of marijuana, it was interesting if not actually a little bit too basic, frankly. If you need 2 inexpensive and quick CEs and want to remind yourself of some basic facts about marijuana, however, I’d take it or look in to another one that looks interesting to you from AATBS. You generally can’t see the course materials ahead of time on a lot of them, but you do get your certificate instantly.

So, I’ve been curious about ethics and guidelines for telepsychology practice since I stumbled on to a site which I felt was really over the line last month (thats for a different venue- I’m actually now working on a telepsychology resources page that I’ll upload  a draft of soon).  So I’ve been collecting links to some various  continuing education programs related to that as sort of a crossover for this site and the other site as well as since I still need a couple more CEs before the end of August (the ethics ones I’ll take after August and let you know about them).

I took a one credit class I don’t really recommend, though. I would skim through the free article if you’re interested though, however the material is too dated and asks more questions than it answers. Computer-mediated-therapy: Possibilities and Limitations (Daniel Hill, PhD - 1 ceu) http://psybc.com/paper-info.php?paper_id=4

In addition, usually on some of these courses you could take the test and pass rather easily. I followed along with the material and answered the test questions as I went, read the article completely (and then re-read some) and it still took me 4 tries to pass the 8 question test. I actually jokingly attribute my academic success to the fact that I’m really good with multiple choice tests, however this one had a number of all of the aboves, both a + c, etc and I think I actually disagree with some of what must be considered the right answers  by the company. I think part of my problem was that the material was fairly dated, there were no references prior to the year 2000 and I couldn’t bring myself to answer that initial start up costs for teleconferencing would be “extremely expensive” or something like that.  In addition, I think the all of the aboves are used selectively- sometimes the answer is probably all of the above whereas other times they seem to pick the best answer while also listing other relevant issues. Regardless, while it was inexpensive and didn’t take me a full hour even with the last minute headache, I don’t think it was really worth my time. 

I’ll let you know about some others I may take, feel free to leave comments or a new post if you know of some good ones

Feel free to  add a post about a course you’ve taken. After you register your email address you’ll get your password. Yo0u can then log in and tell us what you think Be sure to check any appropriate categories to make the post easier to find (you could also “Tag” it to). Put it in a category named after the course provider that you took your CE course from (or choose “other” if its not listed), you could also add it to a category like “ethics” as well if that is applicable.

Click on the register button on the side of the screen. You just need to provide a valid email address to the program and create a username, and the program will email you your initial log in password. Once that is done you can log in and begin blogging about courses. Theres no long screen with personal information necessary. At the moment it looks like when you register you won’t have permission to add new categories, but I’ll work on that in the future or get off my duff and add some more myself

More coming soon, however in the meantime feel free to write a post about your experiences with an independent study course for continuing education (in psychology or mental health). Feel free to include a “tag” related to the course provider’s name so others can find it more easily. You could also include “tags” realted to the subject matter (ex: ethics), or place it inside a relevant category.

Thanks for visiting, check back soon as more developments are under way at http://www.PsychContinuingEd.com