PSY 7605 - Clinical Elective - Practice Seminars

1. Clinical Interventions with Children  Introduces students to the theory and practice of child and family psychotherapy, focusing on specific interventions with children individually, with parents, in families, and in the contexts in which they interact. The first part of the course focuses on O’Connor’s Ecosystemic Theory in treating children. Specific attention is given to understanding the theory, learning how to evaluate a child, formulating a treatment plan and intervening with children who live and function within the contexts of family, peers, schools, cultures and many other systems. In the second part of the course, students learn and practice interventions that are research and theoretically based and designed for treatment of a variety of psychological disorders and problems that occur with children. Interventions target all areas in which the child lives, especially parental and family influences. It is assumed that the students have a sound knowledge of development and life span issues, though the course revisits these issues briefly.
2. Advanced Child Assessment  Provides students with knowledge and skills in assessing children (emphasis on school-aged children). Students will learn principles of assessment techniques–primarily from a hypothesis-testing approach—and will learn to integrate information from various sources to form a comprehensive picture of the child. Students will develop the ability to assess children within a framework that is both developmentally- and culturally-sensitive.
3. Integrated Approach to Sex, Intimacy and Relationship Problems (IFC Emphasis)  Students in this year long, advanced IFC elective will be taught an integrated therapy approach to sex, intimacy and relationship problems. The goal of this elective is to teach students how to do multigenerational, differentiation based therapy with heterosexual and homosexual couples from diverse ethnic, cultural and religious backgrounds. You will also learn about what the research says about the effectiveness of couple and sex therapy. Lectures along with class discussions, role-plays, and video clips will be used. You will learn tools and strategies for effective differentiation based therapy.
4. Program Development and Evaluation  This course provides the student with an overview of the principles of prevention and intervention research design. The primary goal of the course is to help students learn the fundamentals of problem identification, program design, development and evaluation. This course can also help to “jump start” Doctoral project and Dissertation preparation.
5. Loss, Grief and Bereavement (CH emphasis)