Coming from Mental Health Counseling Background

[ac15sam]

Hi there,

I have a few questions about becoming a Psychiatric Nurse Practitioner from a counseling background. If I decide to do a nursing program I will have my Master's in Counseling and 2 years practical experience as a counselor by the time I apply. Since I already have a Bachelor's (in a non nursing field) I will apply to a direct entry NP program.

My question, though, is about the actual practice involved in becoming a Psychiatric NP. My goal would be to work for a community mental health agency as an NP. But if I understand correctly, there is a certain amount of practice that has to happen at the RN level while completing a direct entry program to become an NP.

I guess in a nutshell I am wondering how much non-psychiatric nursing is involved in becoming a Psychiatric NP. I realize you don't go from college student to prescribing nurse over night. How much blood and guts are in the cards for a potential direct entry Psychiatric NP student? I am okay with the idea of learning to do IVs and giving shots and some of the bloodsy gutsy stuff that is involved with nursing but obviously my goal is a far different type of work. I do pride myself in rapport building with patients and I hope my counseling background could come in handy.

Any tips/thoughts/information would be appreciated as far as "what to expect".

Thanks in advance!

[elkpark]

The direct entry MSN programs are basically a mash-up of an Accelerated BSN plus an MSN program. Your direct entry psych NP program will include the minimum required basic nursing education, which will include classroom and supervised clinical experience in medical-surgical, OB, peds, and psychiatric nursing. You will have to take care of sick people in beds in hospitals, and deal with quite a bit of "blood and guts" (and every other type of bodily fluid, except maybe semen).

You might never touch another sick person in your life once you're a psych NP, but you will have to do all the same basic nursing education, including clinical experience, as everyone else who is pursuing licensure as an RN. The US educates and licenses all RNs as generalists, and you will have to be licensed as a "regular" RN in order to be eligible for licensure as a psych (or any other "flavor") NP.

FWIW, I've known quite a few SWs, psychologists, and LPCs over the years who wanted to go into psych nursing because the money would be better than what they were getting paid, but all the people I've known personally have decided against it once they looked into what would actually be involved in getting through nursing school and getting licensed.

[ac15sam]

Thanks for the reply! I'm not sure I'm dissuaded yet though. I do have a bit of a fascination with medical things. The literal hands on stuff scares me a little...or maybe its just lacking confidence. But working in psychiatry fascinates me enough that doing rotations in other areas seems like a good tradeoff and might even be fun! I just want to know as much about what I am getting into before I decide