Program Description

The Ph.D. Program in Clinical Psychology is designed to provide doctoral students with assessment and therapeutic skill competence along with a solid scientific foundation in order to have careers working with the wide variety of psychopathology found among the mentally ill. The program employs a scientist-practitioner model of education. Program graduates have readily found employment in a wide variety of mental health clinics, group practices, public and private agencies as well as hospitals and medical centers. Many have chosen academic paths by becoming college and university faculty members, medical school faculty, research scientists, expert consultants or editors for psychological publishers.

The clinical psychology program is based upon cognitive-behavioral theory and represents the full psychotherapeutic spectrum of this orientation. Many behavior therapy and cognitive-behavior therapy skills are taught including operant and applied behavior analysis techniques, systematic desensitization, exposure therapy techniques, cognitive therapy, rational-emotive-behavior therapy, dialectical behavior therapy, mindfulness meditation, etc. Through lectures, readings, discussions, and role plays, students begin to gain psychotherapeutic skills. Competency is further developed through practicum in the Psychological Evaluation, Research & Counseling (PERC) clinic on campus where students receive experience and supervision in psychodiagnostic methods, in interviewing and in psychotherapy with a wide variety of patients of differing ages, backgrounds and presenting problems. Therapeutic modalities of intervention include both individual and group work and may involve a number of the specialty clinics at PERC such as the Anger Institute, the Anxiety Disorders and Depression Clinic, the Childhood Disorders Clinic and the Virtual Reality Clinic. Students participate in externship placements so they are further exposed to a wide range of clinical, community and educational problems that will help them to be prepared to fully function and be able to offer services in a variety of clinical settings. The final clinical experience of the program is the student’s participation in a full year clinical internship where they serve as staff members.

At the same time psychotherapeutic skill competence is developed, research skills are honed through a variety of statistics and method classes leading to research projects. From the first year onward, doctoral students are encouraged to participate with the research-active faculty of the clinical program. This mentorship model frequently results with our doctoral students becoming co-presenters of research and co-authors of publications. Student attendance and participation at national and international conferences is common. Recent foreign experiences with doctoral candidates have included trips to conferences in Russia, India and Greece. The culmination of a doctoral student’s research competency is the successful written and oral defense of their dissertation project.