Quiz 2: Chapter 1

• Lightner Witmer is the father of clinical psychology and was the first to operate a psychological clinic.
• Witmer wanted the field of clinical psychology to be similar to medicine, education, and sociology
• Witmer's first clients were children with behavioral or educational problems
• Clinical psychology involves rigorous study and applied practice directed toward understanding and improving the psychological facets of the human experience, including but not limited to issues or problems of behavior, emotions, or intellect.
• A clinical psychologist must obtain a doctoral degree in clinical psychology, and can enter the program with a bachelor's or a masters degree.
• Master's thesis and doctoral dissertations are often required
• If going into a doctoral degree straight from a bachelor's degree, it typically is followed by four years of full-time coursework followed by a one year full-time predoctoral internship
• When on-campus course responsibilities are complete, students move onto the one year predoctoral internship, where they take on greater responsibilities and are supervised on a full-time basis
• Boulder conference was the first conference on graduate training in clinical psychology
• At the Boulder conference, they decided that to become a clinical psychologist, graduate students would need training and display competence in clinical and research methods.
• Scientist-practitioner model is also known as the Boulder model
• Scientist-practitioner model was used to label this balanced, two-pronged approach (research and clinical practice)
• Most doctoral programs use the Scientist-practitioner model, although many developments and variants are ever-changing in psychology
• Practitioner-scholar model is also known as the Vail model or the PsyD
• The practitioner-scholar model is a doctoral degree with less extensive training in research and more extensive training in the development of applied clinical skills like psychotherapy and assessment
• The PsyD has been available since the 1970s
• About half of the doctoral degrees in clinical psychology awarded in the field are PsyD
• PsyD programs place less emphasis on research, and more emphasis on clinically relevant aspects of training
• PsyD programs tend to enroll larger amount of applicants
• PsyDs tend to have professional schools rather than departments
• PsyD programs tend to accept students with lower GRE and GPA
• PsyD programs tend to accept masters students
• Students PsyD tend to graduate 1.5 years sooner in comparison with PhD programs
• PsyD programs tend to have more faculty with psychodynamic practices
• Clinical scientist model emphasizes the scientific, research-oriented side of clinical psychology more strongly than the Boulder model
• Richard McFall argued the scientific clinical psychology model is the only legit and acceptable form of clinical psychology
• Academy of Psychological Clinical Science was founded after conference at Indiana University united in effort to promote clinical science
• Technology is increasingly influential in the training of clinical psychologists - such as using webcams for therapy
• Admission rates are competitive, PhD in clinical psychology only accepts on average 7-16% of applicants
• Suggestions for getting into a PhD program:

  • Know your professional options
  • Take and earn high grades in appropriate undergraduate courses
  • Get to know your professors
  • Get research experience
• Suggestions for getting into a PhD program:

  • Get clinically relevant experience
  • Maximize your GRE score
  • Select graduate programs wisely
  • Write effective personal statements
  • Prepare well for admissions interviews
• Things to think about in graduate school interviews:

  • Why do you want to be a clinical psychologist?
  • Why that graduate program?
  • Research interests?
  • What psychotherapy approaches do you prefer?
  • What faculty members would you work with?
  • Long term career goals.
• Predoctoral internship: consists of a full year of supervised clinical experience in an applied setting
• Some examples of where you could do a predoctoral internship include:

  Psychiatric hospital, Veterans Affairs medical center, university counseling center, community mental health center, medical school
• The predoctoral internship takes place shortly before the PhD or PsyD is awarded along with the completion of the dissertation, considered as a transition from student to professional
• Applying to a predoctoral internship is similar to applying to graduate school
• A postdoctoral internship typically lasts one to two years, while most states require a postdoctoral internship for licensure
• During a postdoctoral internship, you take on more responsibilities than during the predoctoral internship
• Once the postdoctoral is finished and the licensing tests are passed, they are able to practice independently
• Some states do not require postdoc for licensure