Clinical Psychology PsyD Program Aims

Aim 1: To prepare students to become health service psychologists who a) have a broad knowledge of scientific psychology; b) engage in evidence-based conceptualization, assessment, and treatment of human problems using individual, developmental, contextual, and sociocultural perspectives; and c) focus on the delivery of interprofessional, integrated healthcare with underserved populations.

Aim 2: To prepare students to be health service psychologists who a) have a broad scientific knowledge base and b) employ scientific principles to consume, produce, and disseminate psychological research, with an emphasis on underserved populations.

Aim 3: To prepare students as health service psychologists who possess a) professional values and attitudes b) strong communication, collaboration, and consultation abilities and c) self-awareness and reflective practice skills.

The Program's aims reflect the Program's mission to offer a rigorous program of study that emphasizes clinical and scholarly work with underserved populations and focuses on training culturally responsive health service psychologists to work in interprofessional, integrated behavioral health settings. These aims are aligned with the Program's practitioner-scholar model (Vail Model) of training in clinical psychology and reflect the desired outcomes of the Program: to produce culturally-competent health service psychology practitioners who have foundational discipline-specific knowledge from which further training in the practice of health service psychology can build. The emphasis on interprofessional training and practice with underserved populations reflects the realities of the evolving health care system and the Program's desire to produce clinicians who have the breadth of skills necessary to succeed in careers encompassed under the health service psychologist umbrella. As a PsyD Program, the aims and competencies have been designed to place relatively greater emphasis on clinical training for health service practice than on generating original research.

Students are also required to demonstrate fundamental understanding of and competency in research activities, however, there is a greater emphasis placed on evidence-based professional practice than on conducting science.