For the requirements in place in 2005-2006, click
here.
For the requirements in place in 2004-2005, click
here.
For the requirements in place in 2003-2004, click
here.
For the requirements in place in 2002-2003, click
here.
For the requirements in place in 2001-2002, click
here.
For the requirements in place in 2000-2001, click
here.
The present program is the natural extension and development of a doctoral level clinical psychology training program that has had APA approval since 1948. The goal of our program is to train students to become competent in both the scientific and applied arenas of clinical psychology. The core curriculum, taken by all students, emphasizes a basic foundation in clinical psychology across the lifespan. In the student's second or third year in the program, the student chooses a cognate within clinical psychology (see Year 3 and 4 below).
Sample Course Schedule
Year 1, Fall
Year 1, Spring
Year 2, Fall
Year 2, Spring
Year 3 and 4
Students in the clinical program must choose an area of specialty, called a cognate. The content of the cognate could be neuropsychology, child clinical psychology, statistics/methodology, or any other area agreed on by the student and the doctoral guidance committee. The cognate should be integrated into the doctoral plan of study including the course plan, dissertation topic, outside research experiences, and clinical activity, as appropriate to the content area in order to provide the student with expertise in that area. At minimum, the cognate must include one comprehensive project in the specialty area, and one extra course chosen by the student and the guidance committee to deepen the focus on the cognate. It is expected that in many cases it may involve more courses or projects than this. It is ordinarily expected that the dissertation will also at least partially reflect the cognate area, but it may not if the student has more than one specialty. The plan for the cognate should be written and attached to the doctoral plan of study and submitted to the department by the fall of the 3rd year in the graduate program.
Year 3, Fall
Year 3, Spring
Year 4, Fall
Year 4, Spring
Year 5, Fall
Year 5, Spring
Year 6
M.A. Research Project and M.A. Guidance Committee
As soon as you have decided upon an M.A. research project topic, you should form your M.A. Guidance Committee--preferably by the end of your first semester of graduate study, but by the end of the first week of Spring classes at the latest. Your temporary advisor functions as your M.A. Guidance Committee chairperson until this committee is formed.
The M.A. Guidance Committee consists of no less than three faculty members, at least two of whom must be members of the Clinical Interest Group. Rules about this committee, which also apply, are set forth by the Department of Psychology as follows: 2 of the 3 members must be regular faculty in the Department of Psychology, only 1 of the 3 may be an Adjunct Faculty Member in the Department of Psychology, and only 1 of the 3 may be an Emeritus Professor. See the Graduate Handbook for more information and definition of these titles.
The M.A. Guidance Committee has the important function of working with you to jointly plan your course work through the first 30 credits and working with you on your M.A. research project.
Timetable for Completion of the M.A. Research Project
Year 1
First week of Spring Semester: Latest date by which the student has chosen an M.A. research project topic in consultation with his/her advisor.
February 1: Latest date by which, in consultation with his/her advisor, the student has determined the methodology/design for his/her study.
April 1: Latest date by which the student completes the research proposal, in consultation with his/her advisor, and sends it to the two other committee members. The proposal should be between 10-15 pages long, including Introduction, Methods, and Proposed Data Analyses.
April 15: Latest date by which the two committee members provide written feedback on the proposal to the student and the student's advisor.
If revisions are needed, the student must respond accordingly. He/she may treat the written comments from the committee members as researchers treat journal reviews. That is, the student may provide a rationale, in a cover letter, for why some of the requested changes are unnecessary or inappropriate. The student also details, in this letter, changes requested that are appropriate and that have been used as a basis for revising the proposal. Both the letter (describing those changes made and those not made) and the revised proposal are written with the agreement, support, and consultation of the advisor.
May 15: Latest date by which the proposal is approved by the advisor and the two committee members. An oral defense may or may not be held as the committee wishes.
Year 2
April 1: Latest date by which the final research project, written as a journal article, can be approved by the advisor and committee. This deadline implies that students should finish their project well before this deadline in order to solicit feedback from the committee members and make appropriate revisions. Again, the committee members must respond with written feedback, and the student responds to that feedback by way of a letter (described above) that details the rationale for revisions to the document and changes requested that were not made.
Latest date by which students email Clinical Interest Group faculty and students copies of their final research project in order that all may read these in preparation for Research Presentation Day.
April 15: Research Presentation Day. The Clinical Interest Group (all students and faculty) attend a day-long presentation of Second Year Students' research projects. Students will give oral presentations and answer questions.
Note that any student who neither meets these deadlines nor is approved for an extension (see below) risks receiving a failing grade in PSY 890.
Two Year Rule for Completion of the M.A. Research Project
Students are expected to complete their M.A. research project by the end of their second year of graduate study. The advisor and student should be aware of any problems by early- to mid-Fall Semester of the student's second year and make all efforts to get the project back on schedule.
However, by January 10 of the student's second year, at the latest, the student must petition, in writing, the full Clinical Interest Group faculty for an extension of the April 15 deadline. The student will meet with the faculty, present the problem, and the faculty will decide if an extension will be granted. Barring extraordinary circumstances, the faculty will only grant a one month extension until May 15 of that year.
If the student has not completed the project by May 15, he/she will be put on probation and given until December 1 of the student's third year to complete the project. If such an extension is needed, the student cannot register for any courses except for PSY 890 in order to focus on completing the project. If the student has not completed the project by December 1, he/she will be dismissed from the program. There are no exceptions to this rule, barring extreme situations or emergencies.
Students with M.A. earned elsewhere. If you completed an acceptable research thesis in psychology as part of your master's work at another institution, you are presumed to have research competence. However, in order to make the final judgment of acceptability (usually a pro forma matter), or if your thesis was in a field other than psychology, you must have your advisor and one other clinical faculty member judge whether they find your previous work acceptable or whether you need to demonstrate additional research competence. A copy of the thesis and a letter documenting the faculty's judgment of acceptability must be filed in the Department Graduate Office.
Students who did not complete a data-based thesis as part of their prior master's work, or whose previous thesis work is judged not acceptable, must demonstrate research competence. This is usually a thesis-equivalency project completed during the first year that the student is enrolled in the clinical psychology graduate program at MSU. This project must conform to the requirements, deadlines, and consequences for the M.A. research project as documented above.
The clinical faculty meet the week of May 1 to review all Second Year Students' SEFs (Student Evaluation Forms-see clinical psychology web page) and to discuss the quality of the research projects. The student's research project committee will make a recommendation to the clinical faculty as to whether the student should or should not be admitted to the doctoral program. Students who have performed well in their first two years in the program, who meet the course grade requirements outlined in the Graduate Handbook, and who are recommended by their research project committee will be admitted to the doctoral program.
Doctoral Program Guidance Committee
The Doctoral Program Guidance committee has three main functions. It approves your program of study, it conducts comprehensive examinations, and it approves your internship placement. Of the four faculty required on this committee, the chairperson and at least one other member, preferably two, must be voting clinical faculty members.
Doctoral Dissertation Committee
In addition to departmental requirements, it is recommended that two members of the doctoral dissertation committee be voting members of the Clinical Interest Group. It is also strongly recommended that one member of this committee is from outside of the Psychology Department. See the Departmental Graduate Handbook (Sec 2.2.5) for more details about committee composition.
Comprehensive Examinations
The following Comprehensive Examination policy was adopted by the Clinical Interest Group on 4/27/05.
1. First Author Publication: The student’s MA thesis or a similar empirical paper will be submitted for publication with the student as first author. The student should submit this paper to his/her guidance committee along with information about the journal of submission and the submission date. Successful completion of this part of the Comprehensive Examination is not contingent upon the paper being accepted for publication; the paper merely needs to be submitted for publication for successful completion.
2. Comprehensive Paper: The student will write a Comprehensive Paper that is a theoretical and empirical literature review that ties together at least two areas of research relevant to the student's doctoral training program in clinical psychology (e.g., neuropsychological factors and exposure to child abuse as they relate to the development of antisocial behavior in youth) in a manner which has not previously been published in the literature. The goals of this paper will be to (a) develop a meaningful integration of science and practice as it relates to a specific area(s) of clinical psychology, (b) increase the student’s breadth of understanding of the field of psychology as whole as well as his/her depth of understanding of two specific literatures, and (c) ensure that the student has a firm grasp of the conceptual and theoretical basis for his/her dissertation.
Format:Procedures:
1. Comprehensive Paper ProposalScoring
All Comprehensive Papers will be graded according to the criteria outlined below. After reviewing these areas, each guidance committee member will provide an overall “score” of the paper using the following 1-5 scale:
Guidance committee members may give scores in-between these anchor points in order to accurately depict their level of concern or enthusiasm.
Criteria:
1) Abstract requirements:To apply for internship in the 5th year of the program, both parts 1 and 2 must be successfully passed by December 1st of the student’s fourth year in the program. If both parts of the exam are not passed by this date, the student will be required to defer internship for one year and the new deadline for successful completion of both parts of the Comprehensive Examination will be December 1st of the student’s fifth year in the program. If the Comprehensive Examination is not successfully passed by this second date, the faculty will meet to decide whether the student will be allowed to remain in the doctoral program. Exceptions to this timeline will only be given in response to substantive evidence of extreme extenuating circumstances. Further, all exceptions must receive prior approval (i.e., prior to the December 1st deadline) by the Clinical Interest Group faculty.
In order to meet this deadline and allow ample time for a potential revision, it is recommended that the Comprehensive Paper be initially submitted to the guidance committee for review no later than March 15th of the student’s third year in the program.
Practicum Requirement and Policy on Externship Clinical Experiences
I. Practicum Class (PSY 994)
2.
Requirements for practicum are at the end of this
section.
3. All hours
accrued by participating in practicum can be listed on the APPI form that
students submit as part of their internship application.
4. Students are required to complete 3 years of practicum. A year is defined as 12 months. (Rarely, there may be valid reasons why a “year” is defined as less than 12 months, for example, if a student is completing his/her last year of practicum and his/her internship begins on July 1.)
5. Students
must complete their first year of practicum during their second year in the
graduate program. Typically, a student completes years 2 and
3 of the practicum following the first year of practicum.
However, this is not a condition of the program.
6. Any interruption in 3 years of continuous practicum training for any reason (e.g., being out of residence for a period of time), has to be approved by the Clinic Director, the DCT, and the student’s advisor. The student should propose a plan of activity, including a rationale for the activity (e.g., if it is an externship, per the requirements of that, listed below), as well as plans for client care. In these instances, the presumption is that clients will be terminated and reassigned and new clients picked up upon return to practicum.
5.
Externship hours cannot be counted as practicum hours nor can an
externship count for course credit. One practical implication
of this is that, per APPIC (Association of Psychology Postdoctoral and
6. Externship hours cannot substitute for any program requirement (other than a comprehensive project for students admitted prior to Fall, 2005), including practicum requirements as described above.
It is also suggested that the student to talk with the DCT about issues of physical safety and liability while at the externship and financial issues that might arise. For instance, regarding safety—if the student goes to another country for an externship, is the country one that the university considers safe for students to travel to, does the State Department have safety warnings for American citizens traveling to this county? Regarding finances—will the time away from the university affect the students’ eligibility for a university stipend or fellowship?
Practicum Year 3: During the academic year and summer, students are required to keep a caseload of 3-4 psychotherapy cases. During the academic year, students are required to conduct 2 assessments of student’s choice and 1 group
Practicum Year 4 and beyond: If the student chooses to enroll, he or she will create a plan each year for his or her practicum experience that is tailored to his or her career plans. The plan would be approved by the doctoral guidance committee and by the clinic director. The deadline for proposals will be decided by the clinic director in accord with the needs of the clinic (e.g., planning for supervision, budget, etc).
2. Students are assigned a clinical supervisor(s) for
supervision of assessment cases. Meetings with assessment
supervisors are scheduled on an as needed basis.
3. Students are required to
attend weekly case conference meetings that last 1.5 hours.
Practicum credits - minimum 8, maximum 14.
Year 1:
Fall
2
credits
Spring
2
credits
Summer
1 credit (unless waived, please contact Clinic Director)
Fall
1 credit
Spring
1
credit
Summer
1 credit (unless waived, please contact Clinic Director)
Human subjects policy: Student research is always submitted to the University Institutional Review Board (IRB) for its review and approval before any project is begun. Information on how to do so is at the IRB website at http://www.humanresearch.msu.edu. In regard to master's thesis or dissertation work, a copy of the IRB approval letter must be placed in the student's file in the Psychology Department Graduate Office. All research, whether it involves the collection of new data or the analysis of existing data sets, requires IRB approval.
Internship: All students complete an APA-approved clinical internship.
This is typically an off-campus 2000 hour internship placement that meets both
American Psychological Association internship requirements and that also
satisfies the student's Doctoral Guidance Committee requirement that the
internship training will complement the emphasis area training already received.
In terms of internship placement, the faculty do not regard internships simply
as one more requirement to be fulfilled, but rather view this predoctoral level
training as an integral component of the doctoral training experience. An
approved dissertation proposal is a prerequisite for application
to internship programs. Program faculty and the Director of Clinical Training
will not submit letters of recommendation unless this requirement is fulfilled.
The Director of Clinical Training meets with students applying to internship
during the summer prior to application in order to explain interest group
procedures and APPIC guidelines. Information
packets are always available from the clinical secretary.
Making Good Progress in the
Clinical Psychology Graduate Program
We expect that all students admitted into our program will complete their degrees. The path to getting a master's and doctoral degree involves a lot of hard work, but we hope our students find the work intellectually exciting and rewarding. Master's and doctoral degrees require collaboration between faculty and students. The faculty in the clinical program want to work closely as mentors and advisors so that students can graduate in a timely fashion and enter into a fulfilling professional career. Communication between students and faculty is vital. In order to enhance communication, the clinical program requires each student who has not completed an internship to prepare a yearly, written self-evaluation (SEF)summarizing his/her progress to date as well as plans for the coming year. Faculty advisors write feedback letters to students commenting on the progress and plans described in the self study.
However, once-a-year contact between a student and his/her faculty advisor is only a minimum requirement, and not sufficient for good progress to occur. We encourage you to stay in touch with your faculty advisor and committee members on a regular basis. Your faculty advisor needs to know when your graduate work is proceeding well and also when it is not. It is not unusual for personal problems or life circumstances to interfere with a student's ability to complete degree requirements in a timely fashion. Faculty can help students problem-solve to get their graduate work back on track.
Making good progress toward degree completion should be a priority for every student and every student's advisor. The faculty meet on a yearly basis to review all students' progress. Deadlines for the M.A. research project are specified above. Those who do not meet timeline requirements may be asked to leave the program or may not be admitted to the doctoral program. Doctoral level students must be deemed to be making "good progress" by the advisor, the Guidance Committee, and the clinical faculty in order to stay in good standing in the program. Good progress means that the student is working consistently on his/her goals for the degree and meeting faculty expectations in this regard. All students are evaluated yearly; those who are not making good progress will be alerted and given an opportunity for remediation. However, if students fail to communicate with their advisors or consistently fail to complete degree requirements will be dropped from the program without the doctoral degree. Those who exceed university deadlines for completion of the degree (see "Academic Programs" at http://www.reg.msu.edu/ucc/AcademicPrograms.asp) will be required to reapply for admission to the program. Students who have been dropped from the program will be evaluated for admission together with the pool of first-time applicants of the year they apply for readmission.