Is 7320 (Clinical Psychologist) a Good Rating?

AIT / Training

8 weeks

Training Location

Fort Sam Houston, TX

Career Field

Medical

What the Recruiter Says

Navy Clinical Psychologists serve where mental health care matters most — supporting warriors and their families. You'll treat everything from PTSD to operational stress, often in deployed environments. The clinical experience is unmatched and the mission is deeply meaningful.

What It's Actually Like

You are a Navy Clinical Psychologist, which means you have a doctoral degree and a commission, and your patients range from sailors with anxiety and adjustment disorders to SEALs managing combat trauma to submarine crews who just spent six months in a steel tube with no sunlight. The recruiter said 'you'll provide world-class mental health care to the fleet,' which is true — your clinical training is excellent, and your patient population provides the kind of experience civilian psychologists only read about in textbooks. You conduct fitness-for-duty evaluations that determine whether someone can stay in uniform, provide therapy in environments where the stigma of mental health care is still very real, and write psychological assessments that influence security clearance decisions. The military needs you desperately and will occasionally pretend it doesn't. You are fighting a cultural battle as much as a clinical one.