CHAPTER 1

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Nature of the Program

Welcome to the Clinical Psychology Ph.D. Training Program. We hope that the years that you spend in the program will prepare you for the many exciting careers available to you. This manual is meant to provide some basic guidance for you as you plan your training. It should be supplemented by the Psychology Department's Graduate Student Manual. Even more important, however, is the thoughtful advice and recommendation of your faculty advisor. You will find that the faculty, and particularly your faculty academic advisor, are helpful and supportive.

Like all quality programs in clinical psychology, this program is demanding. The faculty will expect you to learn to do professional quality work. Although our standards are high, we try to maintain a supportive and encouraging attitude. We strongly encourage you to get involved in your advisor's laboratory immediately and stay involved right up to the completion of your Ph.D. It has been our experience that few of our highly selected graduate students fail to make the grade. Instead, students are much more likely to get into academic difficulty because they isolate themselves from aspects of the program or from their faculty advisor.

The following material represents a description of the specific requirements and details of procedures for completing the Ph.D. degree in Clinical Psychology. Please note that our training program, like the discipline of psychology, is constantly reevaluated and modified to reflect changes in the discipline. The requirements spelled out in this manual may differ from earlier versions of the manual. You should rely on the edition that came out the year you started the program as a guide for what you are required to do to complete your program.

You should obtain a copy of the Department of Psychology's Graduate Student Manual, which includes information on matters not discussed in this Clinical Psychology Manual, including procedures and deadlines for becoming a doctoral candidate, steps to follow in completing the dissertation, policies on assistantships, registration, transfer of credits, incompletes, grievance procedures, etc.