I'd rather see a student psychologist. Really

I'm in therapy right now. I have been (in this iteration) since late January, both dealing with deaths in the family (three this semester, one of which hit me harder than most - that was my grandfather near the start of January) and trying to get something resembling a handle on my anxiety. On the to-do list is gender-related stuff, eventually, since I do have some physical dysphoria in addition to the social stuff. But that's not the point. The point is that I actually prefer to have a student as my therapist, and there are a few reasons.

1. Students are usually less confident. That might seem like a disadvantage, and I suppose it could be for some people, but in my case it's important. I am very good at being an outlier. Someone who is confident in their expectation that things that work for most people will work for me ... is not going to be a good match, because they are often going to be confidently wrong.
   
2. Students knowledge is as up to date as it is ever likely to be. It's a reality of graduate school that we have to be reading a lot of recent research. It's a reality of regular practice in most fields, including psychology, that people don't have time to be reading that much recent research. There are, of course, exceptions, but in general your best bet for the most up to date information is a current graduate student.
   
3. Those two things combine to increase the likelihood that students have heard of neurodiversity and are at least open to the idea. I'm not actually the one who brought up neurodiversity in my sessions, because my initial focus was on grief. My autism was only relevant in the way it's always relevant: the way my brain is wired up affects how I process literally everything, including grief. At some point it was relevant and the therapist I'd been seeing asked me if I'd "heard of" neurodiversity. (I think this must have been the day I my ability to speak went out part way through the session and I switched over to typing, because I didn't burst out laughing immediately.) Yes. Yes, I have heard of neurodiversity.
   
4. The psychological consultation center on my campus doesn't take insurance, but it runs on a sliding scale based on income, and sessions are $5 for students. That's cheaper than co-pays even on most good insurance.

Between these factors, I'd really rather go to a clinic where students are being supervised. Folks there are more likely to be a reasonably good match for me.