Clinical Psychology @ City College

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• Clinical Psychology @ City College

About the Program

The Doctoral Program in Clinical Psychology, one of many training areas in psychology offered by The Graduate Center, is located at The City College of New York, 138th St. and Convent Avenue, in Harlem. Upon completion of the Program's requirements, the Ph.D. degree in Psychology is granted. The Program's clinic, which is called "The Psychological Center," and our classrooms and faculty offices are located on the 8th floor of the North Academic Center, where most of the activities related to the Clinical Program take place. Graduate course work in other areas of Psychology besides Clinical Psychology may be taken at the Graduate Center of CUNY, 365 Fifth Avenue, in midtown Manhattan, or other senior colleges of the CUNY system such as Brooklyn, Hunter, and Queens. The Executive Officer of the Ph.D. Program in Psychology, whose office is located at the Graduate Center, coordinates the overall Psychology Doctoral Program. The Graduate Center houses additional research facilities such as the Center for Social Research, the Center for Human Environments, the Center for Lesbian and Gay Studies, Center for Place, Culture, and Politics, The Study of Culture, Technology, and Work, and Studies of Women and Society.

The aim of the Doctoral Program in Clinical Psychology is to train general clinical psychologists who are competent to work with mental health problems on all levels, from the individual to the community. This aim is implemented through training in theory, research and practice, which includes assessment, diagnosis, individual, family, and group psychotherapy. Students are trained to work with children, adolescents, and adults, as well as with community groups and agencies. Students are offered a full program of studies in these areas as well as the opportunity to concentrate in areas of particular interest.

The Doctoral Program in Clinical Psychology is based on a scholar practitioner model. This model emphasizes the mutual and reciprocal influence of scholarship and practice and aims to generate new theories, new research, and new modes of clinical work.  Our training is aimed at developing clinical psychologists whose experience as practitioners inform their scholarship and whose scholarship, in turn, informs their practice.  That is, we aim to train critical thinkers, who are, on the one hand, fully equipped to evaluate and examine their clinical work from the point of view of current theory and science, and, on the other, evaluate and examine the basic assumptions of theory and science in light of their experience working with patients. In order to do this well, students are exposed to a curriculum that is sequential, cumulative, and graded in complexity and balances immersion in the theory and science of psychology (which we convey through a series of breadth courses as well as core sequences in theory, research, psychopathology, evidence-based practice, and diversity) with immersion in diverse forms of practice (which we convey through core sequences in child and adult assessment and child, and adult, child, couple and family, and group psychotherapy). 

We expose our students to a number of forms of disciplined inquiry; these include those chiefly associated with quantitative methods and designs (such as survey research, cross-sectional and longitudinal designs, observational and experimental designs, and psychotherapy process and outcome research), as well as a range of other qualitative methods, including grounded theory analysis and other text-based analyses. We also expose students to a wide range of theoretical perspectives, including those emanating from dynamic, family systems, cognitive-behavioral approaches.  Taken together, these training components insure that students develop the skills to critically evaluate the methodologies, assumptions and silent axioms underlying a range of empirical studies, theoretical positions, and clinical formulations.

Students are expected to integrate theory, research and practice from the time they begin their studies with us throughout their training into their professional lives.  Their ability to do this in increasingly sophisticated ways is evaluated within the framework of course assignments, practicum responsibilities, qualifying examinations, and dissertation requirements.

The Clinical program has a strong commitment to psychodynamic thinking and social justice, although many other theoretical points of view are represented and studied carefully. We are a diverse community that aspires to have a high standard of open-mindedness. Interdisciplinary thinking is valued in our program, and the faculty has notably broad and wide-ranging interests.

An important emphasis for us is the integration of a psychodynamic perspective with other theoretical approaches and modalities (such as cognitive-behavioral theories and techniques, group treatment approaches, and community consultation), and with research in areas such as developmental psychology, personality, cognition, neuropsychology and neuroscience.

Our program provides training in clinical work in conjunction with academic course work and research. The Subprogram, which began in 1963, has a national reputation for excellence and is accredited by the Commission on Accreditation of the American Psychological Association. A high percentage of our students are accepted for internship at outstanding clinical facilities.

Accreditation

The program is fully accredited by the Commission on Accreditation of the American Psychological Association (APA).