The Doctoral Program in Clinical Psychology requires four years
of full-time course work and practicum experience in addition to
successful completion of a Master's Thesis, comprehensive
examination, clinical internship, and dissertation (PSY 950,
Doctoral Research).
The program is designed to provide a logical progression of
course work over four years of study. The first two years are
directed at imparting the basic principles and skills in
assessment, statistics, foundations, and psychotherapy. In
addition, there are courses in research methodology that are
structured in such a way as to enable the student to generate a
dissertation proposal during the third year. An approved proposal
is required prior to submission of internship applications. The
student's progress toward completion of the dissertation
requirement will be evaluated each semester; failure to make
satisfactory progress may result in termination from the
program.
Students begin their clinical practicum training in their first
year of study at our training clinic, the St. John's University
Center for Psychological Services. They continue receiving
supervised clinical practicum training at the training clinic in
the skills relating to diagnostic interviewing, psychological
assessment, and psychological intervention through the course of
their four years of study. During the third and fourth years of
study, students also complete clinical externships in clinical
facilities in the metropolitan New York area.
The fifth year of study is usually devoted to a full-time
clinical internship which has been approved by the department.
During the internship year, the student must register for PSY 903
and PSY 904 (which carry no academic credit) and PSY 950. There is
a charge of $100 per semester for PSY 903 and PSY 904. Instead of
embarking on an internship during the fifth year, students may
elect to work toward completing their dissertation research and
defer their internships for a year. Clinical child track students
must complete an approved internship that provides substantial
exposure to working clinically with children and families.
Courses are divided into five areas of specialization:
- Foundations
- Statistics and Research Methodology
- Social Behavior, Development and Abnormal Behavior
- Assessment
- Intervention Techniques and Professional Issues
These areas are progressively developed over the five levels of
the program. The following is a breakdown, by area of
specialization, of the required courses in the program.
Foundations
These offerings are designed to transmit a basic fund of knowledge
relating to the history and science of the discipline.
617 Cognitive Psychology
648 Physiological Psychology
650 History and Systems of Psychology
Statistics and
Research Methodology
These courses provide instruction in research and methodology with
the aim of understanding basic research, designing investigation
procedures and applying research to help solve personal and social
problems. In addition to predissertation and doctoral dissertation
research, the following courses are required:
608 Statistical Design in Research
609 Research in Clinical Psychology I
614 Multivariate Statistics
659 Psychological Measurement and Scaling
908 Master's Research
950 Doctoral Research
Social Behavior, Development and Abnormal
Behavior
622 Social Psychology
623 Developmental Psychology
726 Psychopathology Across the Lifespan I
727 Psychopathology Across the Lifespan II
Assessment
Evaluation of people using the skills of observation, interviewing
and psychological testing; the theory, development, reliability,
validity, appropriate usage, administration, scoring,
interpretation and reporting of the results of the assessment
techniques.
635 Objective Personality Assessment, or 835 Neuropsychological
Assessment
660 Assessment I: Intelligence Testing
663 Assessment II: Personality Assessment
668 Assessment Lab I
670 Assessment Lab II
Intervention and Professional
Issues
Theory, research, techniques, and supervised experience in various
methods of intervention.
627 Cultural Diversity in Psychological Services
631 Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy I
658 Professional and Ethical Issues
701 Clinic Practicum I
702 Clinic Practicum II
705 Clinic Practicum III
706 Clinic Practicum IV
741 Assessment and Intervention Practicum I, III
742 Assessment and Intervention Practicum II, IV
750 Behavior Therapy
760 Marital and Family Therapy (Clinical Child Track)