Clinical Psychology: PhD, Fresno

A Scholar-Practitioner Program

The Fresno Clinical PhD Program is a scholar-practitioner program fully accredited by the Commission on Accreditation of the American Psychological Association (750 First Street NE, Washington, DC 20002-4242; Phone: 202-336-5979; Email: apaaccred@apa.org). It is designed for students interested in mixing clinical practice, research, and teaching in their professional careers. The coursework is focused primarily on clinical training, with a strong secondary research emphasis and a tertiary focus on training students as teachers of psychology. The students’ practica are similarly focused, in that students complete not only extensive clinical and research practica, but also a teaching practicum designed to prepare them to teach at the undergraduate level. A traditional, independent, quantitative, or qualitative dissertation is required. The PhD program takes five years to complete, with the fifth year spent in a full-time internship.

The clinical PhD program is ecosystemically oriented. It trains students to consider the role of diverse systems in creating and/or remedying individual and social problems. For example, in just one course the role of individual, family, ethnicity, religion, dominant culture, the legal and medical systems, and historical time are all considered when reviewing the causes and potential interventions for child abuse. While students receive an exceptional grounding in traditional clinical assessment and intervention, they also are taught to consider the potential value of advocacy, consultation, or public policy work in helping both individuals and entire groups of clients with similar problems. For example, psychotherapy can be of great value to gay or lesbian clients struggling with the social pressures of the coming out process, but the need for such treatment might be greatly reduced by applying clinical knowledge and skills in changing social mores and the plethora of discriminatory laws that create the hostile environment with which these clients struggle.

Student Competencies

The clinical PhD program offered at the Fresno campus is designed to train students to be competent in nine broad areas:

• Foundational Science of Psychology (Social and Developmental Psychology, History and Systems, Biological Science, and Cognitive and Affective Bases of Behavior) so as to link the core sciences with contemporary research and practice in psychology;
   
• Research and Evaluation in order to conduct independent research and write grants;
   
• Relationship Skills that enable them to make interpersonal connections, maintain appropriate boundaries, and engage in ethical and professional behavior;
   
• Diversity Competence that involves developing awareness of their own culture and the cultures of others as mediators of one’s world view;
   
• Assessment Skills (diagnosis, interviewing, testing and report writing) enabling them to engage in an ongoing process of evaluating their practice, research and teaching;
   
• Intervention Skills that enable students to plan, implement and evaluate their work within a cultural framework;
   
• Professional Development so as to be able to engage in self-evaluation and engage in life-long learning;
   
• Supervision that enables them to provide good clinical and professional feedback to others; and
   
• Teaching so as to be able to convey their clinical and research knowledge to others through a variety of teaching modalities.

At the Fresno location, all clinical psychology students have the opportunity to select one or more programs of emphasis in order to develop areas of focused study and clinical expertise in addition to their broad and general education in clinical psychology. These emphasis areas are clinical forensic, ecosystemic child, and health.

Professional Training and Internship

The PhD program emphasizes the integration of academic coursework with clinical, research, and teaching practice. In order to integrate appropriate skills with material learned in the classroom, students participate in a professional training placement experience beginning in the second year. The professional training placement experiences completed prior to the full-time predoctoral internship are known as practicum experiences. Both the practica and internship comprise the professional training component of the program.

Students complete their clinical practica include community mental health centers, clinics, inpatient mental health facilities, medical settings, specialized service centers, rehabilitation programs, residential or day care programs, forensic/correctional facilities, and educational programs. Students are required to train in a different setting each year gaining experience in inpatient and outpatient settings, as well as with child and adult populations. Students are placed in a clinical practica beginning in their second year, after successfully completing Basic Foundations of Clinical Practice, Intellectual Assessment, and Introduction to Ethics.  Third-year clinical PhD students are required to participate in a 15-hour-per-week practicum. Fourth-year clinical PhD students will spend 20 hours per week in a practicum at the Psychological Services Center in Fresno or at a CSPP-approved agency.

Clinical PhD students begin their 2-year research practicum during their first year under the direct mentorship of faculty members.

Clinical PhD students enter teaching practica in their fourth year of their program. All of these practica involve teaching psychology to undergraduate students either at the university or at local community colleges.

Assignments to the practica are accomplished with guidance from the Office of Professional Training. Each practicum agency is screened prior to being presented to the student as a placement. The student and the Professional Training Liaison make the final placement decisions jointly.

Fifth year students are responsible for obtaining an appropriate APA, APPIC, or CAPIC full year internship (2080 hours) and are assisted in this process by the Office of Professional Training. During the time that students are completing their internship requirements, payment of the full internship fee is required. (See Tuition and Fee Schedule ). For many students, the internship stipend covers the costs of tuition and living expenses in the fifth year.

Students who intern at the Golden State Psychological Internship Association (GSPIA), which is CSPP-supported, generally receive internship stipends of $15,000 or more. GSPIA makes every effort to ensure that internships for clinical doctorate students meet the licensing standards of the California Board of Psychology and other states.

International students should discuss regulations and issues related to stipends well in advance with the Director of Professional Training.

Credit for Previous Graduate Work

Students applying to the Fresno clinical PhD program may be eligible to receive credit for previous graduate work. All applicants must meet the graduate level requirements for preparation in psychology. While an applicant may not have completed the graduate level requirements at the time of application to CSPP, these requirements must be satisfied before the admitted student can enroll.

Any single course can only be used to fulfill one course requirement. 

1. The Fresno clinical PhD program allows a maximum of 30 units of graduate level transfer credit into the program. These credits must be completed with a grade of a B or better and must be from an accredited institution.
    
2. Transfer credits reduce the total number of units a student must complete in order to obtain the degree. Therefore, it is sometimes possible for a student to reduce a five-year program to four years.
    
3. Graduate level transfer credits meeting our requirements are allowed even if the master’s degree has not been awarded.
    
4. Regardless of the number of transfer units allowed, a student must complete any and all requirements remaining in both the core and emphasis areas for which transfer credit was not allowed.
    
5. Listed below are courses that are NOT eligible for transfer credit. Please note that transfer units are credit units and do not require replacement.

* To apply for a waiver of Basic Foundations of Clinical Practice, students should submit 1) syllabi of graduate level coursework in psychopathology/diagnosis, basic counseling skills, and theories of psychotherapy and 2) a brief videotaped role play or actual therapy session so the student’s basic counseling skills can be assessed. This material should be submitted to the Program Director no later than mid-August. The materials will be submitted to the instructor of Basic Foundations of Clinical Practice for review and for a decision. The student must sign up for the course during registration, and if the waiver is granted the course may be dropped. If the course is not approved for waiver, the student remains in the course. A decision will be made prior to the Add/Drop deadline. If the course is waived, the units must be replaced with elective units. If sufficient elective units have been transferred into the program, an additional course may not have to be completed. Because this is a year-long class, students will receive a waiver for the entire year, if granted, rather than just one semester.

**In order to waive this requirement, the Director of Field Placement reviews the information submitted by the student as to the nature and content of the practicum, the number of hours and the site of the experience. The Director of Field Placement will make a decision and the student will be notified as to whether or not the practicum may be waived. This decision must be made as soon as possible, preferably by the Add/Drop deadline. If the practicum is waived, the units must be replaced and the hours of the waived practicum will be added to the next required practicum. Under certain circumstances practicum hours may be accepted for transfer. For information about transferring in practicum units consult the Office of Professional Training.

*** In order to waive this requirement, the student must contact the Program Director for referral to a faculty member designated to determine waiver requirements.