A Scholar-Practitioner Program
The Fresno Clinical PhD Program is a scholar-practitioner program 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; Web: www.apa.org/ed/accreditation). It is designed for students interested in combining 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 any intervention course the role of individual, family, ethnicity, religion, dominant culture, the legal and medical systems, and historical time may be considered when reviewing causes of problems and potential interventions. While students receive an exceptional grounding in traditional clinical assessment and intervention, they also are taught to consider the potential value of advocacy, community engagement, 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) enable students to link the core sciences with contemporary thought, research, and practice in psychology;
• Research and Evaluation enable students to conduct independent research, be a productive scholar, and write grants;
• Relationship Skills enable students to make interpersonal connections, maintain appropriate boundaries as appropriate to the multicultural context in which they are operating, and engage in ethical and professional behavior;
• Diversity Competence involves developing awareness of students’ own culture and the cultures of others as mediators of their world view and to determine how these varied world views interact with research, clinical, and teaching processes;
• Assessment Skills (diagnosis, interviewing, testing, and report writing) enable students to engage in an ongoing process of evaluating their practice, research and teaching;
• Intervention Skills enables students to plan, implement, and evaluate their work within a cultural framework;
• Professional Development engages students in self-evaluation and life-long learning;
• Supervision and consultation enable students to provide good clinical and professional feedback to others; and
• Teaching enables students to convey their clinical and research knowledge of psychology to others at the university level 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, health, or self-determined with approval of program director.
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 professional training experiences beginning in the second year. The professional training experiences completed prior to the full-time predoctoral internship are known as practicum experiences. Both the practica and internship constitute the professional clinical training component of the program.
Students complete their professional training in community mental health centers, clinics, inpatient mental health facilities, medical settings, specialized service centers, rehabilitation programs, residential or day programs, forensic/correctional facilities, and educational programs. Students are required to train in a different setting each year, gaining experience in with different populations, modalities, and settings. Students are placed in a clinical practicum beginning in their second year, after successfully completing Basic Foundations of Clinical Practice, Intellectual Assessment, and Introduction to Ethics. Second-year clinical PhD students are required to participate in a 15-20 hours-per-week practicum. Third-year clinical PhD students spend 15-20 hours per week in a practicum at the Psychological Services Center in Fresno or at a CSPP-approved third year placement. Fourth year clinical PhD students may opt to take an advanced elective practicum. Students typically receive a minimum of 1500 hours of clinical training prior to internship
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 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. International students should discuss regulations and issues related to stipends well in advance with the Office of Professional Training.
Clinical PhD students begin their 2-year research practicum during their first year under the direct mentorship of PhD Program faculty members. They must present at a professional conference and be a co-author on a paper submitted for publication as part of the requirements for graduation. These requirements are usually completed during the research practicum experience.
Clinical PhD students usually enter teaching practica in their fourth year of their program. All of these practica involve teaching psychology to undergraduate students either through the university or at local community colleges or universities.
Credit for Previous Graduate Work
Students applying to the Fresno clinical PhD program may be eligible to receive credit for previous graduate work up to a maximum of 30 units. Students transferring from another Alliant CSPP program should refer to PhD Student Handbook for transfer policies and procedures. 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. Students should consult with their academic advisor immediately if they believe they can reduce their time to completion, as specific course sequences are necessary for this to occur.
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.
PSY 6507 Basic Foundations of Clinical Practice: I (3 units)*
PSY 6508 Basic Foundations of Clinical Practice: II (3 units)*
PSY XXXX Any required ethics course
PSY XXXX Any clinical practicum
PSY XXXX
PSY XXXX
PSY 6035 - 6037 Any assessment course**
One required intervention course
Three required Research Practica***
Any course over seven years old
* 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 must remain 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 student must contact the Program Director for referral to a faculty member designated to determine waiver requirements.
*** Students may transfer in the first semester of the four semester Research Practicum sequence if they have completed a Master’s thesis in a previous program.