Doctor of Psychology (PsyD) in Clinical Psychology

The Graduate Institute of Professional Psychology offers a child and adolescent proficiency track within the program's current curriculum and structure. In addition to a core curriculum, which includes courses in clinical child development, child psychotherapy, and advanced issues in child assessment intervention, the track allows students to have specific practicum experience in child and adolescent work. The goal of the track is to provide students with an opportunity to develop not only a broad theoretical foundation but also strong therapeutic, assessment, and program development skills in working with this specialized population.

Only students formally admitted to the doctoral program will be considered to be matriculated students eligible to enroll in all the necessary courses. Only matriculated students will be eligible to take the Qualifying Examination. All work must be completed within nine years after admission to the program.

The PsyD program consists of three years of full-time study, plus internship and dissertation. Full-time study includes both the academic year and a six-week summer term that runs from mid-May until the end of June or early July. A minimum of two years (64 semester hours) of full-time study (or the equivalent) must be completed at the University, with one of these years while in full-time residence (or the equivalent).

For students entering the program in or after fall 2024:

Students with a master’s degree or higher in clinical psychology or a related field may apply for transfer credits for the following courses if 1) courses were taken within the past five years, and 2) student received a grade of A- or higher in the course:  

• Theories of Personality 
• Experimental Design
• Advanced Research Design in Clinical Psychology
• Clinical Lifespan Development* (can only transfer if course included full lifespan development) 
• Physiological Psychology
• Advanced Seminar in Systems Theory and Family Therapy
• Cognitive/Affective Bases of Behavior
• Community Psychology
• History and Systems
• Social Psychology 

Students may transfer up to 21 credits. In addition, in the above circumstances, students must still have at least two years in residence at the Graduate Institute of Professional Psychology. 

Questions about these policies should be directed to Psychology Graduate Programs Specialist John Strand at strand@hartford.edu. 

Inclusion of a qualifying examination is standard procedure among clinical psychology doctoral programs. The Qualifying Examination constitutes a marker event and is designed to assess attainment of psychological attitudes, knowledge, and skills related to professional practice, achievement of doctoral-level scholarship, and readiness to assume additional clinical responsibility.

The Qualifying Examination follows a treatment case model, similar to that used by the American Board of Professional Psychology (ABPP) for examining advanced doctoral-level practitioners applying for the diplomate. The student prepares a clinical work sample for evaluation by two faculty readers.

The Qualifying Examination includes three components

• Theoretical Essay Component, based on the assessment or treatment case
• Clinical Component, which is a case study based on an assessment or treatment case, and which includes a video or audio tape, a transcript of the taped session, and an introductory memo
• Oral Examination

For the Theoretical Component, the student writes a theoretical essay of relevance to the Clinical Component of the Qualifying Examination.

For the Clinical Component, the student writes a paper describing the piece of clinical work selected for presentation, its theoretical rationale, outcomes, and reflections on the experience of working on the case.

The Qualifying Examination is taken during the second year of course work. Students who fail any part of the Qualifying Examination have an opportunity to retake that part of the examination. A second failure will result in termination from the program.

The Doctoral Dissertation is the capstone of the scholar component of the program. Students are prepared for the dissertation by the program's research sequence in the first year and by the Dissertation Seminar in the fall of the second year.

The dissertation provides an opportunity for students to demonstrate doctoral-level scholarship in clinical psychology. The dissertation may take a variety of forms, including an empirical study (quantitative or qualitative), a theoretical contribution/critique, a program evaluation, an analysis of a public policy issue as related to professional practice, a program development project, or a careful case analysis of a clinical problem. The primary criteria are that the form, design, and methodology of the project be creative, germane to the question under consideration, informed by the psychological literature and that the final product yield conclusions that are logically consistent with this plan.

Students are encouraged to select topics that flow from their personal and professional interests, and for which they can find appropriate dissertation advisement from among the faculty or psychologists within the region.

Students who plan to apply for an internship must have an approved (i.e. successfully defended) dissertation proposal prior to submitting an internship application. Without a defended proposal, an applicant will be deemed as not ready to apply for an internship by the program's faculty.

The students in the PsyD in Clinical Psychology Program will:

• Achieve an understanding of the fundamental areas of psychology, including cognitive and affective aspects of behavior, social aspects of behavior, history and systems of psychology, and individual differences.
• Achieve an understanding of the scientific, methodological, and statistical methods of psychological inquiry.
• Achieve competence in the assessment of personality, psychopathology, and cognitive functioning.
• Achieve competence in the delivery of psychological interventions.
• Achieve an understanding of issues of diversity and individual differences and appreciate the importance of these issues in their clinical work.
• Become familiar with the Ethical Principles for Psychologists (2002) and apply them competently in their professional work.
• Acquire the ability to work with diverse professionals and diverse clients.
• Develop beginning abilities to work at an organizational or systems level.
• Develop the ability to utilize feedback in a productive manner.
• Become members of professional societies that provide opportunities for continued learning.
• Participate in educational opportunities beyond required classes.

This program follows the practitioner/scholar training model and places primary emphasis on generalist training, which prepares students for productive careers as professionals in clinical and community settings. Our integrated and sequenced curriculum consists of foundational courses, clinically focused didactic seminars, supervised practica, and integrative professional practice and case conference seminars. This curriculum is designed to facilitate the acquisition by students of requisite attitudes, knowledge, and skills in the key areas of relationship, assessment, intervention; research and program evaluation, management and supervision, and consultation and education.

Competence in assessment of behavior, personality, and intellectual functioning is one key focus of our training. The acquisition of intervention and consultation skills with a variety of clients and client systems, ranging from the individual to couples, groups, and families, and from a variety of theoretical perspectives, is another.

The practitioner aspects of the program are also designed to facilitate the process of professional socialization by integrating supervised clinical experience with exploration of ethical issues, professional affairs, and interprofessional relations, as well as by training in self-awareness and use of self as a professional. Students are also expected to maintain membership and active participation with faculty members in national and local professional organizations.

The Graduate Institute of Professional Psychology began offering a Child & Adolescent Proficiency Track in the fall of 2003. In addition to a core curriculum-which includes courses in clinical child development, child psychotherapy, programmatic interventions with children, and clinical aspects of adolescence-the track also allows students to have specific practicum experience in child and adolescent work. The goal of the track is to ensure that students develop not only a broad theoretical foundation but also strong therapeutic, assessment, and program development skills in working with this special population.

While the practitioner component of this practitioner/scholar program is emphasized, it is complemented by the development of the ability to evaluate critically the efficacy of one's clinical skills, the impact of clinical programs on target populations, the validity of various assessment tools, and the contemporary clinical literature in general. The scholar component of the practitioner/scholar training is intended to support productive careers as clinicians in clinical and community settings rather than to train researchers for careers in academic settings.

The scholar aspect of the program includes didactic instruction and practical experience in applied research issues, and encourages "students to consider themselves as local clinical scientists practitioners who engage the challenge of the human condition directly, starting with the needs of each client and bringing the best available theoretical conceptions, the most useful available research, along with individual and collective professional experience, to bear in studying and improving the functional condition of the client" (Peterson et al., Professional Psychology: Research and Practice 28 [1997], 376).