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[Clin Home] [ Clinical Highlights] [Clinical Faculty] [ Clinical Curriculum ] [ Clinical Experience ] [ Program Stats ] [ FAQs ]
The Clinical Psychology program offers a number of features attractive to many students. Click on these features to learn more.
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Accreditation. The Clinical Psychology program has been accredited* since 1961. The program was most recently reaccredited in 2005.
*Committee on Accreditation
c/o Office of Program Consultation and Accreditation
Education Directorate
American Psychological Association
750 First Street NE
Washington, DC 20002-4242
(202) 336-5979
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Balance. Balance is an important theme of our program: balance with respect to clinical and research training, and balance with respect to perspective. Our objective is to provide the graduate with a solid foundation as a clinical psychology generalist, so that she/he can pursue a variety of career paths, change careers successfully, and adapt to inevitable changes in the profession and its context. |
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Specializations. The program offers specializations in adult and child clinical psychology. The areas have complete curricula and distinct clinical training opportunities. While many programs provide some training in child clinical topics, relatively few provide distinct specializations in this area. |
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Financial Assistance. Financial support for the first year is guaranteed to all students offered admission. Although we cannot guarantee support beyond the first year, in practice, we only admit as many students as we can reasonably anticipate supporting through four years on campus. We have maintained this policy for over 25 years. Thus students in good standing through the fourth year can anticipate receiving a stipend (varying by whether the MA has been earned and by source of funding), a tuition waiver, and all complete a training assignment as a teaching or research assistant or in an externship. No special application is required for financial assistance. Stipend levels also change each fiscal year, generally increasing by about 3-5% for cost of living increases.
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Graduated clinical training. Students begin their involvement in clinical training almost immediately, participating in practicum their first semester. At first, they participate in weekly vertical team meetings, reviewing the clinical activity of advanced students or sitting-in as co-therapists. Subsequently, they begin to see their own clients. Individual supervision at this stage is on an hour-for-hour basis, and students would typically see just one client. With increasing confidence, the student will see additional clients. As training progresses, students move toward the functioning of an independent professional, with increasing client load, case complexity, and level of responsibility. |
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wide range of clinical experiences. The program provides many and varied clinical training opportunities. These occur through regular clinical practica, summer field placements, specialty practica, and clinical training assignments. Training sites range from the interdisciplinary campus clinic, campus counseling center, women's center, various regional mental health centers, traditional mental hospital, various adolescent and adult correctional settings, and a rehabilitation center for brain damaged individuals. |
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Research training. The program offers a broad range of research training opportunities. The program operates on an elective-mentor system: that is, students may choose to work primarily with one faculty member, but they are also completely free to complete the MA thesis under one supervisor and the dissertation under another, while participating in research activities with other faculty. The clinical faculty themselves represent a very broad range of interests. Students in our program can choose to work with any of our faculty regardless of program. We see this as allowing the benefits of mentorship without the limitations. Students are encouraged to present research at conferences and to become involved in the publication process. |
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Teaching. Competence in teaching is obviously valuable for those seeking an academic career. (Moreover, it is increasingly expected of candidates rather than being viewed as a bonus to strong research competencies.) Less obvious is the key importance of presentation skills in virtually every professional niche. Our program offers a range of opportunities related to teaching, training, presenting, and related technology. Most students will have at least one training assignment as a teaching assistant. Depending on the course, this may involve serving as a resource to the confused student, developing course materials, managing course-related web materials, developing tests, running exercises, grading written work, guest lecturing, or running discussion sections. Some courses (e.g., Psychopathology) are organized to allow a student responsibility for a 6-lecture segment and corresponding exam--providing an intense teaching experience of manageable scope. Further opportunities range from class presentations, through formal thesis and dissertation research presentations, to conference presentations. |
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Atmosphere. Faculty and students are proud of our program's collegial and supportive atmosphere. Perhaps best described as demanding and responsive, we seek to maintain high academic and professional standards, while being responsive to the goals, strengths, and needs of individual students. In general, students experience the program as being highly facilitative of their professional development. |
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Alumni. Approximately 30% of our recent graduates have begun their careers working in medical settings and 20% in private practice. About 10% have taken positions in each of the following settings: community mental health, academic, correctional, and counseling centers. Individual graduates have gone on to productive careers as clinicians, consultants, researchers, and administrators including a number who have become chairpersons, directors or chief psychologists in university departments, internship programs, community mental health agencies, VA hospitals, university medical settings, children's treatment centers, and doctoral clinical programs. The following illustrate the diverse paths in which our graduates have achieved prominence:
- Ronald Smith, Ph.D., 1968. Professor & Program Director, University of Washington. Former consultant to Houston Astros and Seattle Mariners professional baseball teams. Former president, Association for the Advancement of Applied Sports Psychology, author of 23 books and over 150 articles.
- Laura Brown, Ph.D., 1977, former president of the APA Division of the Psychology of Women and author or editor of Handbook of counseling and psychotherapy with lesbian, gay, and bisexual clients; Subversive dialogues--theory in feminist therapy; and Recovered memories of abuse: Assessment, therapy and forensics.
- Bev Thorn, Ph.D., 1980, former clinical program director at the University of Alabama and former chairperson of the Council of University Directors of Clinical Psychology as well as liaison to other APA boards and professional groups. Author of a text on cognitive behavioral management of pain.
- Erica Wise, Ph.D., 1980, University of North Carolina, who served three terms on the APA Ethics Committee including one year as chairperson (1993); and has served since 1995 on the National Register's Committee on Practice and Ethics.
- Wade Horn, Ph.D., 1981, Former Undersecretary of Health and Human Services under George W. Bush (and Commissioner for Children, Youth, and Families under former President Bush). President of the National Fatherhood Initiative; Former Chief Psychologist at Children's Hospital National Medical Center and author of The new teen book; and The new father book: what every man needs to know to be a good dad.
- Michael Franzen, Ph.D., 1983, APA Fellow of the Division of Clinical Neuropsychology and author of Reliability and validity in neuropsychological assessment; Screening children for brain impairment; and other books.
- Susan Davis, Ph.D., 1987, coauthor (with her husband and SIU Counseling Psychology graduate Scott Meier, Ph.D.) of the widely used The elements of counseling (now in a 5th edition) and the recent The elements of managed care.
- Derek Hopson, Ph.D., 1987, coauthor (with Darlene Powell-Hopson, Ph.D.) of Different and wonderful: raising black children in a race-conscious society; Friends, lovers, and soul mates: a guide to better relationships between black men and women; and The power of soul: pathways to psychological and spiritual growth for African Americans.
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