Preparing Psychologists to Prescribe  Lee Sechrest and James A. Coan University of Arizona In this report, an investigation of the training received by professionals currently authorized to prescribe medications is considered as a step toward understanding what might be involved in preparing psychologists appro- priately if prescription privileges for psychology were to be obtained. Infor- mation about admission and curriculum requirements was collected from medical schools, dental schools, physician assistant programs, nurse practi- tioner programs, and schools of optometry. Results suggest a high level of pharmacologically relevant coursework is required for admission to, and the completion of, programs that currently prepare their professionals to prescribe. It is argued that preparing psychologists to prescribe would likely entail similar training requirements in addition to, or instead of, those already in place, leaving clinical psychology dramatically and permanently altered. © 2002 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Clin Psychol 58: 649–658, 2002. Keywords: training; prescription authority; curriculum; clinical psychology; training model Preparing Psychologists to Prescribe It is worth considering the training received by other professionals authorized to pre- scribe medications as a step toward understanding what it is that proponents of prescrip- tion privileges for psychology want to do and what might be involved in accomplishing their aims. Virtually everyone involved in the prescription privileges (RxP) debate agrees that psychologists can be trained to prescribe medications. The question whether such a thing is possible easily leads to pointless and wasteful rumination, as noted by Hayes and Heiby (1996). The correct question is whether doing so is in the best interests of the public and of clinical psychology. In this article, we present information regarding prescription-relevant training in several prescribing professions, supposing that such infor- mation might be useful in contemplating the changes that might be necessary in the selection and training of clinical psychologists should prescription privileges become a The work reported in this paper was supported through a generous subvention from Sam Feldman, for which the authors are grateful. Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to: Lee Sechrest, Department of Psychology, Uni- versity of Arizona, 1503 E. University Ave., Room 312, Tucson, AZ 85721; e-mail: sechrest@u.arizona.edu. JOURNAL OF CLINICAL PSYCHOLOGY, Vol. 58(6), 649–658 (2002) © 2002 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Published online in Wiley InterScience (www.interscience.wiley.com). DOI: 10.1002/jclp.10050