Clinical Training

The Counseling Psychology Program requires 2 years (or 2 three-term sequences) of clinical practica and 2 terms of supervision experience prior to the one year pre-doctoral internship. Students typically pursue additional “Externship” clinical experiences. Through externships, students gain further interest-specific clinical experiences and specialized training in populations of interest. Our communities are growing increasingly diverse and the roles of psychologists are changing to meet the demands of future communities. As such, we make every effort to train students to work in diverse roles and functions and to work with different types of populations in multiple types of settings. Although our students become licensed psychologists and leave with the skills to be psychological health service providers, we highlight for our students how psychologists need to also become active as social change agents, integrate prevention into all of their work, utilize empirically supported best practices, and empirically evaluate interventions that they provide.

In the first year-long practicum, which begins for most students in the second year, students focus on providing interventions to adult and late adolescent clients individually, in small groups, or in couples. Current placements for this practicum include the University of Oregon Counseling and Testing Center, Lane Community College Counseling Center and the Veterans Administration Center in Eugene.  In the second year-long clinical practicum students focus on providing interventions to children and families in the community. Students work with families in the University of Oregon Child and Family Center, as well as in home-based and other settings. In the third year of training, students often enroll in externship experiences (in such example locations as the Veterans Administration Hospital, Lane Community College, University Career Center, juvenile detention facilities, or at the University Counseling and Testing Center and other locations of specific interest to the student). Finally, all students complete 2 to 3 terms of supervision training and practica experience, supervising small groups, assessment students, and students doing individual counseling or child and family therapy.

Clinical training is completed with the pre-doctoral Internship. As identified by APA: "The internship is an essential component of doctoral training in professional psychology. Internships should provide the trainee with the opportunity to take substantial responsibility for carrying out major professional functions in the context of appropriate supervisory support, professional role modeling and awareness of administrative structures. The internship is taken after completion of relevant didactic and practicum work and precedes the granting of the doctoral degree. The internship experience is crucial preparation for functioning as an independent professional. It should be an intensive and extensive experience related to the graduate program's training objectives, and should further the development of the knowledge, skills, and sensitivities [specified as requirements for doctoral training in Counseling Psychology]." (American Psychological Association (1986). In order to apply for internship, students must successfully complete both the adult and child/family practicum sequence and must pass all of the credits associated with these practica. Students must also have received a positive annual evaluation the year before applying for internship that documents appropriate clinical skills and a good standing in the program.

All of our graduates over the past seven years have been successful in obtaining an internship.  For more detailed information, see the table below.

Internship Stats for Past 7 Years of Graduates ('99-'06 academic years)