DOCTORAL PROGRAM IN CLINICAL PSYCHOLOGY

MISSION OF PROGRAM

The mission and goal of the doctoral program in Clinical Psychology at Stony Brook University (SBU) is to train behavioral scientists who are also skilled clinicians and who can advance the science of psychology by assuming active roles in academic and research settings. The program is fully accredited by the American Psychological Association.

OVERVIEW OF CURRENT PROGRAM REQUIREMENTS:

To receive a Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology from SBU you must:

1) Complete a series of required courses and demonstrate your academic competence across the field of psychology.
2) Satisfy a series of requirements in research and scholarship, culminating in the doctoral dissertation.
3) Satisfactorily complete a minimum of 160 hours of direct supervised contact with clients.
4) Complete one full year of approved internship.
5) Adhere to the ethical guidelines of the American Psychological Association as if you were a
professional psychologist.
6) Satisfy any additional general requirements set forth as degree requirements for the Psychology Department as a whole.

SEQUENCE OF COURSE REQUIREMENTS

The required course sequence outlined below is designed to meet APA guidelines provided appropriate electives are chosen. The median time to completion of the program is five years, not including the internship year, although students are encouraged to complete all requirements except the internship in four years. Although students are not required to meet New York State's licensure requirements, most requirements can be met with careful course selection.

Students must pass each of the two statistics courses, three core courses, and the clinical courses with a B- or better. Students must maintain an overall average of 3.0

First Year

Fall Semester

Total 12 Credits

Spring Semester

Total 14 Credits

Second Year

Fall Semester

Total 9 Credits

Spring Semester

Total 9 Credits

Third Year

Fall Semester

Total 9 Credits

Spring Semester

Total 9 Credits

Fourth Year

Fall Semester

Total 9 Credits

Spring Semester

Total 9 Credits

Note: Core courses, electives, and research to be chosen in consultation with your advisor and the DCT.  You should sign up for research credits (PSY 699) throughout the fourth year.

Fifth Year

Fall Semester

Total 9 Credits

Spring Semester

Total 9 Credits

Note. Students must register for research credits in the semester prior to graduation.

SUMMERS:

Students are not required to take courses during the summer.  However, most students remain in residence doing research and seeing clients. If you wish to use the infirmary in the summer, you will need to register for 0 credits. See Marilynn Wollmuth for details. In order to meet APA and New York state requirements regarding knowledge of developmental psychology, students will be expected to read a developmental psychology text and will be examined with a multiple choice exam on the contents of the developmental text. This testing of the material in the developmental text will take place in September of the first year of graduate training.

COMMENTS: Internship is typically taken in the 6^th or 7^th year, although some students do so in their 5th year. All requirements for the Ph.D. degree, including dissertation, must be completed within 7 years after completing 24 hours of graduate credits in the Department. Students must remain continuously registered for fall and spring semesters until the Ph.D. is granted or they are considered by the Graduate School to have left the university and must formally be readmitted, which requires, among other things, approval of the clinical faculty.

REQUIRED RESEARCH AND SCHOLARLY ACHIEVEMENTS

Second Year Project

The second year project involves designing, conducting, and writing up an empirical study which is approved by the student’s 2nd year project committee. The committee should consist of two members: the research advisor and one other faculty member with a full, research, joint, or adjunct appointment in the Department who is chosen by the student after consulting with the research advisor. At least one member of the committee must be from the core clinical faculty. Any joint or adjunct faculty member must be approved by the Director of Clinical Training (DCT). Students are advised to discuss the project with both committee members as early in the development of the project as possible and to confirm in writing all understandings reached. These discussions should include the substance of the project as well as the expectations of the committee members regarding a proposal (a formal proposal is not required by the program, but may be required by the committee). Upon completion of the project, the student will submit a manuscript in APA journal format to the committee for its approval. Approval forms may be obtained from, and must be returned to, the DCT's office. A l0-15 minute oral presentation of the 2nd year project to the clinical faculty and students is required during the Fall of the third year. Arrangements for the 2nd year project presentations are made by the DCT.

Specialty Paper (Preliminary Exam)

Conducted in the third year, the specialty paper (i.e., Preliminary Exam) can take multiple forms, including a review article, a meta-analysis, an empirical paper, or a grant proposal. Other forms are possible, should be designed in collaboration with the students’ research mentor, and must be approved by the clinical area faculty. The mentor is expected to play an active role in helping the student choose a topic area and select a target journal for eventual submission of the paper, and in reading and commenting on drafts of the paper. The specialty paper must be proposed and defended to a committee consisting of the mentor, a core or research clinical faculty member (other than the mentor) and one voting member of the department who is not in the clinical area. (A voting member is someone with a primary appointment in the psychology department, not someone with joint or adjunct status). Committee members are selected by the student. The proposal of the specialty paper must be approved by the committee and it is the student’s and committee’s choice as to whether they meet as a group to facilitate this process. Once complete, the specialty paper must be defended during a 1-hour oral defense conducted by the committee. During the oral defense, the committee will question the student about the paper and related topics. The questions will generally be broad, and require the student to place the topic and findings in a broader context, discuss the topic from alternative theoretical perspectives, and comment on the implications of the findings for the broader field. The student’s performance must be evaluated as satisfactory by the three Specialty committee members. Specialty paper committee approval and completion forms must be obtained from, and submitted to, the Psychology Graduate Office. The committee must be approved by the Graduate Office and the Graduate School prior to the specialties defense. The clinical faculty, at its discretion, may allow a student who fails to satisfactorily complete the written and/or the oral portion of the Specialty paper the opportunity to resubmit the written paper and/or retake the oral defense. For a more detailed description of the Preliminary Exam, please click here.

Supervised Direct Instruction (SDI)

The Department requires that all graduate students complete two semesters of Supervised Direct Instruction (SDI), which involves taking responsibility for preparing and teaching several classes of an undergraduate or graduate course under the supervision of the course instructor. One of the SDIs must include PSY 310 Research Methods.

Students who have completed at least one SDI and taken the departmental seminar in Teaching generally have the opportunity to teach their own undergraduate course if they desire.

Supervised Practice

You are required to have a minimum of 160 hours of supervised practice (direct contact with clients); you are encouraged to exceed this minimum, as many internship sites are looking for 200 or more hours. All students are expected to have a minimum of 80 contact hours at The Psychological Center during their second year, and a minimum of 60 contact hours at The Center during the third year. A maximum of 20 hours from externship sites may be approved by the DCT. You are advised not to undertake any psychological practice (including therapy, testing, or
interviewing), paid or non-paid, unless you are supervised by a qualified supervisor and have notified and received an approval from your advisor and the DCT in advance.

Externships

Stony Brook’s clinical psychology program does not require an externship. Nonetheless, over the past five years or more, the majority of our graduate students have taken externships. If you do seek an externship, it is important to choose a site in accord with both your short and long term clinical and research goals. Because of time requirements of certain externships, they can significantly lengthen the time for completion of your specialty and dissertation research and delay your application for an internship. There are good reasons some students want externships, like a desire to have experience with certain populations not seen in our Krasner Psychological Center (KPC)  or wanting different kinds of supervision than offered in the KPC. However, you need to be cautious and not be lured into providing too many hours of clinical services for an externship site. The faculty at Stony Brook recommend that you not take an externship of more than 8-12 hrs if at all possible because of concerns that your research experiences and productivity will be adversely affected if you spend two days a week or more at an off-campus facility. Finally, before taking an externship, you should discuss such with your advisor and the DCT, and both the advisor and the DCT must sign off on an approval form for the externship.