Greetings! As the Director of Clinical Training, let me welcome you to this section of our web site. Here you will find detailed descriptions of our curriculum. Since it is unusual in some respects, a few words of introduction may be in order.

Let me start with a little program history. Some years ago, our faculty sat down to revise our curriculum. The question was whether there was a "common core" of knowledge that all well-trained clinical psychologists should possess by the end of graduate school, and as I recall the faculty all thought there was such a "common core." The problem was that we each had a different theoretical orientation; and the longer we talked, the clearer it became that we did not agree on just what that "common core" was. While we could agree on the idea of a core, it certainly didn't seem "common."

That and subsequent discussions led us to an explicit program commitment to a pluralistic training philosophy, which is discussed elsewhere in this site, and to the curriculum model described in this section. In brief, the core of every psychologist's education is in the areas of psychopathology, assessment, and therapeutic intervention. We offer courses in each of these areas, but generally they are not survey courses. Instead, each faculty member teaches courses in each of these areas from that faculty member's own theoretical orientation. Students design individual programs of study, based on their own career goals, that select from among these various offerings. So whereas all of our students study in all three areas, some will develop an emphasis on interpersonal approaches, others on humanistic approaches, still others on cognitive behavioral or perhaps developmental psychopathology approaches.

The result, we hope and intend, is a community of scholars who are committed to genuine pluralistic dialogue between and among the various theoretical positions represented by faculty and students in the program. We think the model has served us well over what is by now quite a few years. If this approach to graduate education sounds appealing to you, then we invite you to read about our program curriculum and training opportunities in detail by clicking on the buttons above. If you like what you read, we invite you to apply!