A Practitioner Program
The PsyD program in clinical psychology addresses the societal need for professionals who deliver or facilitate the delivery of psychological services to diverse populations and to underserved or poorly-served populations. This societal need is for practitioners and programs that are culturally aware, culturally sensitive, and responsive to human problems of developmental deprivation, dysfunction, trauma, and oppression.
The PsyD program has full accreditation from 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).
An overview of the program is as follows. Students take scientific foundations courses in the first two years. In the first year, students begin a progression of increasingly more advanced courses in assessment and intervention: from Clinical Interviewing, Advanced Psychopathology, and Psychodiagnostic Assessment, to Iintervention theory and skills, and ethics courses, to Practice Seminars, to the final level of Advanced Clinical Elective and clinical supervision within the Professional Roles course. At the end of the second year, a Research Comprehensive Exam is given covering the content of the Statistics course and Research & Test Design course. At the end of the third year, an oral examination is given in the areas of assessment and testing, case conceptualization, treatment planning and intervention strategy, legal and ethical issues, therapeutic relationships, self-examination, and multicultural competency. Professional training in field placements includes first year practicum I, second year practicum II, half-time Internship in the third year, and a half-time Internship in the fourth year or a full-time internship in the fifth year for students who are interested in that option.
Formal research training starts in the second year with courses in statistics and research and test design. The PsyD program trains practitioners to be critical reviewers and consumers of research. As mentioned above, a written comprehensive examination in statistics and research and test design is taken at the end of the second year. A Doctoral Project is conducted in the third year. These projects typically are a comprehensive literature review, a selective literature review plus the presentation of a talk to a professional audience, a selective literature review plus the design of a brochure for a professional target group, a selective literature review plus the design of an empirical research project, or a selective literature review plus a grant proposal. These projects involve mentoring by a project supervisor and an academic consultant and involve interaction with three field consultant-practitioners who are experts on the project topic.
Program Goals, Objectives, Competencies, and Outcome Measurement
The PsyD Program goals:
GOAL 1: TO DEVELOP GRADUATES WHO HAVE MASTERED THE SCIENTIFIC FOUNDATIONS OF CLINICAL PSYCHOLOGY AND WHO APPLY THIS KNOWLEDGE TO THEIR WORK.
Objectives for Goal 1: Students will:
1. Acquire knowledge of psychology as a scientific discipline that serves as the basis for professional practice.
2. Integrate, synthesize, and critique scientific knowledge from multiple sources, taking into account and weighing the significance of multiple determinants of human behavior.
3. Apply scientific knowledge to the practice of clinical psychology.
GOAL 2: TO DEVELOP GRADUATES WHO UNDERSTAND RESEARCH METHODS AND SKILLFULLY APPLY THEM TO SIGNIFICANT HUMAN PROBLEMS.
Objectives for Goal 2: Students will:
1. Be knowledgeable about test construction and quantitative and qualitative research methods.
2. Be able to critically evaluate literature in terms of its scientific rigor and attention to diversity issues.
3. Understand that research informs effective practice and that useful research often arises from clinical work.
4. Master the scientific literature on a clinical topic, identify lacunae, and then design and create a scholarly product.
5. Communicate research findings at an appropriate level to both professional and non-professional audiences.
GOAL 3: TO DEVELOP GRADUATES WHO IDENTIFY AS CLINICAL PRACTITIONERS AND WHO USE ETHICAL AND LEGAL PRINCIPLES TO GUIDE PROFESSIONAL PRACTICE, SELF-EVALUATION, AND PROFESSIONAL GROWTH.
Objectives for Goal 3: Students will:
1. Acquire knowledge of and adopt values and ethical principles of professional practices as outlined in the APA Ethical Principles of Psychologists and Code of Conduct.
2. Understand legal and state regulations pertaining to psychological practice and research.
3. Apply ethical principles of practice in the various roles of a clinical psychologist (therapist, manager, consultant, educator, supervisor, researcher).
4. Take responsibility for their own professional behavior and actively seek supervision when appropriate.
GOAL 4: TO TRAIN STUDENTS TO UNDERSTAND CLINICAL PHENOMENA WITHIN SOCIAL AND CULTURAL CONTEXTS IN ORDER TO APPLY THIS UNDERSTANDING IN EVALUATION/ASSESSMENT, CONSULTATION/EDUCATION, AND SUPERVISION/MANAGEMENT.
Objectives for Goal 4: Students will:
1. Possess an in-depth understanding of clinical phenomena that integrates social and cultural considerations (e.g., psychopathology, therapeutic processes, and associated phenomena).
2. Identify assessment tools appropriate to the clinical questions, and be able to administer an assessment battery, interpret results, and complete a psychological report in an objective, accurate manner.
3. Understand that assessment is not a discrete event but is an ongoing process informing practice and research.
4. Understand the role of the psychologist in complex systems and the general principles of consultation, education, supervision, and management.
GOAL 5: TO DEVELOP GRADUATES WHO ARE ABLE TO INTERVENE USING MULTIPLE METHODS, WITH DIVERSE POPULATIONS, ACROSS MANY SETTINGS AND IN CHANGING AND EVOLVING CONTEXTS.Objectives for Goal 5: Students will:
1. Demonstrate knowledge of the theoretical and research bases of interventions in professional psychology.
2. Establish and maintain productive and respectful working relationships with clients, colleagues, and supervisors from diverse social and cultural contexts.
3. Understand the needs of clients on individual and systems levels and within social and cultural contexts.
4. Demonstrate the ability to create treatment plans that are culturally appropriate and informed by current clinical research and utilize multiple intervention strategies consistent with these treatment plans and with standards of practice.
5. Evaluate the efficacy of their interventions and use this information to continuously assess the treatment plan and intervention methods.
GOAL 6: TO DEVELOP GRADUATE STUDENTS WITH THE ATTITUDES, KNOWLEDGE, AND SKILLS TO WORK PROFESSIONALLY IN A MULTICULTURAL SOCIETY.
Objectives for Goal 6: Students will:
1. Understand the presuppositions of their own culture and attitudes towards diverse others as mediators of their worldview.
2. Develop knowledge of themselves as cultural beings in assessment, treatment, consultation, and all other professional activities.
3. Integrate knowledge, sensitivity, and relevant skills regarding individual and cultural differences into all aspects of their work.
4. Possess the ability to articulate an integrative conceptualization of diversity as it impacts self, clients, colleagues, and larger systems, and an ability to engage in effective dialogue about multicultural issues.
GOAL 7: TO TRAIN STUDENTS WHO ENGAGE IN LIFELONG LEARNING AND PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT.
Objectives for Goal 7: Students will:
1. Develop positive attitudes about life-long, self-directed learning, and take responsibility for their ongoing development as professionals.
2. Be able to identify challenges and problems in clinical practice and to undertake self-directed education to resolve these challenges and problems.
3. Present the results of self-directed education in educational presentations verbally and/or through written documents incorporating scholarly integration of practice, theory, and/or research findings.
4. Inform clinical practice with the results of self-education and using both traditional tools and contemporary technologies.
Emphasis Areas
The PsyD program includes three emphasis areas: Clinical Health Psychology (CH); Family and Couple Emphasis (FACE); and Multicultural Community-Clinical Psychology (MCCP). A fourth option open to students is the Multi-interest Option (MIO). Applicants to the PsyD program must specify one of the above, to which the applicant seeks admission. Finally, 45 hours of individual psychotherapy with a psychologist licensed in California are required prior to graduation.
Multicultural Competence Training
The PsyD program includes multicultural training to address issues of diversity in regard to race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, disability, age, social class, inherent-psychometric- intelligence variances, and religion. This is reflected in the required course, Intercultural Processes and Human Diversity, as well as through the integration of multicultural perspectives in several core and elective courses.
Special features of this program include a national reputation for excellence in multiculturally relevant education and training, a wealth of diverse clinical placements available in the Los Angeles region, and a mentoring model firmly integrated with the academic experience.
The diversity of the campus community provides students with the opportunity to interact with faculty, staff, administrators, and other students from many different cultural backgrounds. The primary goals of the two-semester course, Intercultural Processes and Human Diversity, are to increase self-awareness relevant to multicultural issues, to increase awareness of multicultural dynamics in the larger society, and to thoughtfully examine multicultural issues in service delivery.
Students are asked to look at their own multicultural identities, as well as at their values, stereotypes, prejudices, and potential “blind spots.”
In addition, Intercultural Processes and Human Diversity focuses on increasing multicultural knowledge by gaining familiarity with theory, research, and clinical applications relevant to diverse populations. Finally, elective courses and the availability of field training sites that provide experience with diverse groups offer opportunities to develop skills that enhance work with culturally diverse clients.
Professional Training
The development of appropriate professional knowledge, skills, and attitudes is a process that begins with the student’s doctoral program and continues through the individual’s professional career via practice, consultation with colleagues, and formal continuing education. At the predoctoral stage, students’ professional development occurs within the context of both formal coursework and clinical training experiences supervised by faculty and professionals in the field. Students develop and acquire clinical skills through professional training experiences in a variety of mental health service settings in the community. Such supervised professional training experiences are called “practicum” at the premaster’s level and “internship” at the predoctoral level.
Each student is assigned a professional field training advisor who meets regularly with the student to develop and implement an individualized training plan designed to assure (1) that the student receives a broad base of clinical experiences with a variety of clientele and professional role models and (2) that professional training experiences are well-matched to the student’s level of skill and longer-term professional goals.
In the first year of the PsyD program, students take their first practicum through the Alliant’s Professional Service Center (PSC). The goals of this experience is to introduce students to the role of the professional psychologist, provide students with exposure to problems and populations served through community mental health services, provide didactic training that supports the attainment of foundational knowledge related to core competencies necessary to the practice of professional psychology, and introduce students to evidenced-informed and evidenced-based practices.
PsyD students in the second year are required to have a 15 to 20-hour per week practicum experience in another mental health setting. Students begin to assume a greater degree of clinical responsibility for assessment and intervention while being closely supervised at a level appropriate to the student’s training and abilities. This clinical professional training experience vary with respect to the nature of clients served and the mental health setting in which the student serves in, as well as upon individual students’ skill levels, professional interests, and training needs.
The internship experience is extended to differentiate it from the more traditional model of one-year full time internship in a single agency. It is extended in that it covers a twenty-four month period taken half-time, beginning in the third and continuing to the end of the fourth year of study, and includes experience in two agencies, one in each year. Students typically finish the PsyD program in four years. As an alternative, some students pursue a full-time APA internship in the fifth year.
Students should be aware that various postdoctoral training positions and some employers (e.g., the Veterans Administration) require that successful applicants have APA-accredited internships. Students have extensive opportunities to discuss with their assigned clinical field training advisors the various internship options available and the development of a training plan which assures students’ needs and goals are met.
The predoctoral internship involves a systematic and intensive program that includes assessment, intervention, supervision, and training under the auspices of clinical faculty and administrative staff of the Division of Professional Field Training and the Director of Field Training at the Los Angeles campus. During the internship, the student has a considerable degree of the responsibility for providing a variety of psychological services under the direct supervision of licensed clinical psychologists and in contexts that offer a variety of additional training opportunities, for example, case conferences, in-service training, quality assurance reviews, and individual and group supervision.
At both the practicum and internship levels, the Los Angeles campus students are placed for professional training in agencies that are formally affiliated with the school. All professional training programs are carefully reviewed and continually monitored by the Los Angeles campus clinical faculty to assure consistent and high quality training. The Los Angeles campus clinical faculty members are also responsible for evaluating students’ training performance. The types of settings in which students might train include university and college counseling centers; inpatient psychiatric hospitals; public and private community mental health agencies; medical hospitals or outpatient clinics; physical rehabilitation programs; day treatment programs; substance abuse programs; and residential treatment centers. With over 100 agencies in its training network, the Los Angeles campus offers students exceptional professional training opportunities reflecting the wide range of interests and training needs of the students.
The majority of affiliated professional training sites exist within a 40-mile radius of the campus. Students can generally anticipate driving some distance in at least one of their professional training years. Students who wish to pursue full-time internships are encouraged to make applications throughout the country. Currently, some students receive a stipend from their professional training agency. The majority of half-time internships and virtually all clerkships and practica do not offer stipends and students should not count on training stipends as a means of financing their education.
The predoctoral training requirements in the clinical programs at Los Angeles sufficiently qualify a graduate of the clinical programs to pursue licensure in the State of California after acquiring an additional 1500 hours of post-doctoral experience. Students who may be considering licensure in other states should check the requirements for licensure in those states carefully; considerable variation exists among states in regard to necessary qualifications. State licensing requirements can be obtained from: Association of State and Provincial Psychology Boards, 555 South Perry Street, Suite 112, PO Box 4389, Montgomery, Alabama 36103.
Credit for Previous Graduate Work
Students may submit requests for transfer credit for previous graduate work. The maximum allowed for transfer credit is 30 semester units of graduate level courses. Transfer credit is allowed only for master’s level courses with a B or better grade from accredited institutions. Contact the program director for a list of courses that are eligible for transfer credit.
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