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Requirements

PROGRAM DESIGN & CURRICULUM OVERVIEW  

Program Courses

The program, which adheres strongly to a scientist-practitioner model, prepares students to engage in both scientific research and clinical practice, through a consistent, dual emphasis  on research and clinical training. The program requires a minimum of five years of full-time study, consisting of required and elective academic course work, a minimum of two year-  long, part-time practica in the second and third years of graduate training, an empirical  master’s thesis, a qualifying examination, an empirical doctoral dissertation, teaching  experience, and completion of a one-year, full-time, APA-accredited internship.

Required Core and Practicum Courses are as follows:

Required Core Courses

PSYCLN 601   Testing and Assessment I

PSYCLN 610 Culture and Mental Health

PSYCLN 613 Lifespan Psychopathology

PSYCLN 620   Intervention Strategies

PSYCLN 641   Cognitive and Affective Bases of Behavior

PSYCLN 642   Social and Cultural Bases of Behavior

PSYCLN 660   Biological Bases of Behavior

PSYCLN 670   Advanced Statistics

PSYCLN 675   Research Methods and Ethics in Clinical Psychology

PSYCLN 680   History and Systems of Psychology

PSYCLN 699   Master’s Research Seminar

Required Practicum Courses and Training (Practicum Seminars I, II, III, and IV are led by core clinical faculty members  and accompany the second and third year practica.)

PSYCLN 785 Practicum I and Ethics

PSYCLN 786 Practicum II and Ethics

PSYCLN 787  Practicum III

PSYCLN 788  Practicum IV

Elective Practicum Courses and Training

PSYCLN 690  Introduction to Clinical Outreach and Intervention Practicum

PSYCLN 691/692  Clinical Research Practicum I & II

PSYCLN 781  Assessment Practicum I

PSYCLN 782  Assessment Practicum II

PSYCLN 783  Advanced Clinical Research Practicum I

PSYCLN 784  Advanced Clinical Research Practicum II

PSYCLN 791 Advanced Clinical Outreach, Intervention, & Consultation Practicum I

PSYCLN 792 Advanced Clinical Outreach, Intervention, & Consultation Practicum II

PSYCLN 893  Advanced Community Practicum I

PSYCLN 894  Advanced Community Practicum II

These on campus and advanced off-campus practica are described in the Practicum Handbook.

Required APA Accredited Internship (See Internship Handbook)

PSYCLN 898   Internship

Masterโ€™s Thesis and Dissertation Research Credits

Students must also enroll for masterโ€™s thesis and dissertation research credits.

PSYCLN 698 Masters Research Credit

PSYCLN 899 Dissertation Research

Fourth Year Teaching Requirement

Unless a student petitions to waive the teaching requirement, all students must take  a required teaching seminar in their fourth year, when they are concurrently teaching their own courses.

PSYCLN 891   Teaching Seminar

Required Elective Distribution Courses:

In addition to these core courses, research credits, teaching seminar, and practicum experiences, students must complete four total elective courses, one in each of the following four categories: (1) Advanced Methods and Analysis; (2) Assessment; (3) Diversity; and (4) Therapy Approaches. The electives offered are listed below.

Most electives are offered every two or three years and, thus, we encourage students to plan accordingly and contact the course instructor or DCT for information about the next planned offering for a given elective.

Counselor advising

Group 1: Therapy Approaches

PSYCLN 720    Family Systems & Family Therapy

PSYCLN 721    Child Psychotherapy

PSYCLN 726    Cognitive Behavioral Theory and Therapy

PSYCLN 727    Emotion Focused Therapy

Group 2: Assessment

PSYCLN 602    Testing and Assessment II (Personality Assessment)

PSYCLN 701    Neuropsychological Assessment

PSYCLN 710    Child Assessment

Group 3โ€”Advanced Methods and Analysis

PSYCLN 770   Multivariate Statistics and Causal Modeling

PSYCLN 775   Qualitative Methods in Clinical Psychology

Group 4โ€”Diversity

PSYCLN 742   Social Construction of Self & Identity

PSYCLN 879   Advanced Community Psychology

Students may also enroll in additional non-required courses offered through other UMass Boston departments (e.g., language courses, psychotherapy courses, statistics courses, etc.) that may enhance their professional development.

Accredited by the Commission on Accreditation of the American Psychological Association since 1993, University of Massachusetts Bostonโ€™s (UMass Boston) program in clinical psychology is based on a scientist-practitioner-activist model. The program prepares clinical psychologists who have an excellent foundation in psychological science and can translate their basic knowledge into practical applications to meet the mental health needs of children, adolescents, and adults from diverse sociocultural groups. Graduates of the program have the requisite skills to advance understanding of key human problems through research, scholarly activities, clinical practice, teaching, professional service, advocacy, and activism.

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Mission Statement

UMass Boston Clinical Psychology Doctoral Program Mission, Spring 2017 Revision

Accredited by the Commission on Accreditation of the American Psychological Association since 1993, University of Massachusetts Bostonโ€™s (UMass Boston) program in clinical psychology is based on a scientist-practitioner-activist model. The program prepares clinical psychologists who have an excellent foundation in psychological science and can translate their basic knowledge into practical applications to meet the mental health needs of children, adolescents, and adults from diverse sociocultural groups. Graduates of the program have the requisite skills to advance understanding of key human problems through research, scholarly activities, clinical practice, teaching, professional service, advocacy, and activism.

Our clinical psychology training model is biopsychosocial in its scientific orientation, and places special emphasis on the roles of culture and context in understanding the complexities of multiple dimensions of human behavior and functioning. This emphasis includes, but is not limited to, bringing to the study of clinical psychology an understanding of social justice, equity, oppression, systems of privilege and marginalization, procedural and relational justice, and epistemological and methodological marginalization. This includes a commitment to training a diverse workforce of scientist-practitioner-activist clinical psychologists. Among the many skills students learn in our program, we aim to develop within them a lifelong commitment to using clinical psychology to serve the general population and to meet the needs of marginalized individuals and communities by being culturally humble and responsive researchers, mentors, clinicians, supervisors, teachers, leaders, advocates, activists, and community members. The training in our program results from an affirmative commitment by both faculty and students to engage in ongoing personal reflection and reflection upon the practices in our fieldโ€”to increase our self-awareness and guide thoughtful psychological practice and relevant social justice actions.

Our educational mission is to train scientist-practitioner-activist clinical psychologists who will:

  1. Engage in social science research, critical scholarly inquiry, and educational activities including scholarly analysis that specifically address social and structural inequities affecting psychosocial health and functioning, including but not limited to inequities based on social class, race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, gender identity, gender, disability, age, language, citizenship, immigration status, and religion. 
  2. Provide affirming and empowering evidence-based clinical services to people across sociocultural groups and statuses.
  3. Serve as leaders, role models, and change-makers to promote social justice within their organizations, the profession of psychology, and other contexts. We aim to foster studentsโ€™ capacity to serve as advocates and activists.
  4. Apply their developed awareness of how the field of clinical psychology is socially situated, reflect critically on the practices and purposes of our field, and understand how it can privilege or marginalize certain identities and lived experiences, treatment and assessment practices, and epistemological and philosophical positions.

Learning Objectives

LEARNING OBJECTIVES

To achieve these long term goals for our graduates, we have the following Learning Objectives for their time within our program. Our Learning Objectives line up with the longer term goals for our graduates related to Research (1), Practice (2), and Activism (3) above.  The fourth aim above reflects our overall approach to how we approach all aspects of our training.  It focuses on applying a reflective practice in critical social justice theory across all aspects of the work.  In this way, it does not have specific learning objectives associated with it, but rather it serves as the lens through which we view research, practice, and activism.   

Goal 1To produce graduates who engage in clinical psychology research, critical scholarly inquiry and analysis, and educational activities that specifically address social and structural inequities affecting psychosocial health and functioning.

Objectives for Goal 1:

To provide students with:

1.1  Foundational knowledge in the science of psychology with specific attention to training in addressing social and structural inequalities with appropriate conceptual, methodological, and culturally sensitive skills.

1.2  The basic skills necessary to become critical consumers of the existing research literature, identifying gaps in the literature and developing the skills to design and implement rigorous research projects.

1.3  The skills necessary to evaluate research critically in relation to issues of contextual and cultural diversity and to design and conduct research that helps advance the field in understanding and attending to these issues.

Goal 2: To produce graduates who are knowledgeable about and skilled at providing affirming and empowering evidence-based clinical services to people across sociocultural groups and statuses.

Objectives for Goal 2:

To provide students with:

2.1. Didactic and clinical training needed to become proficient in testing and assessment theory and practice that is both informed by scientific knowledge and is culturally responsive.

2.2 Didactic and clinical training needed to become proficient in a continuum of intervention skills in a manner that is culturally informed and responsive, guided by scientific knowledge, and that considers individual assessment performance in the context of developmental and broader systemic factors.

2.3 Introductory level knowledge of competencies in supervision and consultation skills, through exposure to the literature on best practices supervision.

2.4 Didactic knowledge and skills to understand, recognize, and address the contextual factors, positionality, and power dynamics inherent in co-constructed therapeutic relationships and embedded in clinical settings.

Goal 3: To produce graduates who have the awareness, knowledge, and skills to serve as leaders, role models, and change-makers to promote social justice within their organizations, the profession of psychology, and other contexts. We aim to foster studentsโ€™ capacity to serve as advocates and activists.

Objectives for Goal 3:

To provide students with:

3.1 Didactic experiences to provide foundational awareness, knowledge, and skills to engage in activism within clinical practice and research activities.

3.2 Training aimed at fostering growth to apply activist-informed awareness, knowledge, and skills across professional contexts.

Program Description

Our program coursework and training experiences emphasize:

  • A biopsychosocial approach.  Students learn to conceptualize and treat problems in living by considering not only problem behavior and mental disorders but also by considering the person within their physical, psychological, developmental, and social contexts. Research training gives students skills for analyzing problems from a variety of theoretical perspectives.
  • Assessment and psychotherapy skills. The program trains students in a broad range of assessment and intervention skills that enable them to promote healthy adaptation, prevent the development of individual and social problems, and treat problem behavior and mental disorders. We teach students to critically reflect upon our fieldโ€™s use of assessments and clinical approaches and guide students to utilize or create culturally responsive, equitable approaches to serve all their clients.
  • Sociocultural context.  Within a broad understanding of sociocultural factors, our coursework highlights systemic oppression and privilege, power dynamics, and social and cultural approaches to clinical psychology. We emphasize the ways in which these factors affect individual development across the lifespan, relational interactions, and social groups and dynamics for all peopleโ€”with a particular emphasis on how marginalized and disadvantaged individuals and groups are impacted. As a foundation for developing this understanding, and the ability to apply it to psychological activities, students reflect upon their own personal cultural situations and positionalities to better understand the experiences of others. They examine and develop skills regarding how to best advocate for their professional values in diverse and complex settings.
  • Developmental phenomena in typical and atypical pathways.  In our program, students learn about the range of lifespan developmental trajectories from infancy through adulthood. This focus helps to elucidate the ways in which relationships and other environmental factors can support or hinder adaptive or maladaptive development, with the recognition that behaviors which are adaptive in one context may be maladaptive in another. Consistent with our biopsychosocial orientation, students embrace the complexity of developmental processes by taking into consideration the dynamic and transactional interplay of physiological, genetic, social, cognitive, emotional, and cultural influences across time.
  • Skills toward practice.  Students have the opportunity to take coursework and engage in supervised pre-doctoral clinical training experiences that can be used towards attaining licensure in Massachusetts and many other states.

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