Fresno Clinical PhD: A Scholar-Practitioner Program

The clinical PhD program offered at the Fresno campus is designed to:

• introduce students to the ethical values and orientation of the professional psychologist;
• provide a background in the psychological, biological and sociocultural factors that influence human behavior;
• develop students' research competencies; and,
• establish a foundation in the necessary technical skills required to function in clinical settings for working with diverse populations.

  APA Education & Training Outcomes

  The CSPP Fresno Clinical Psychology PhD program is accredited by the American Psychological Association (APA), which requires that we provide student outcome data, including time to completion, program costs, internships, attrition and licensure. Please follow the link below for that information. We hope this information will help you to make an informed decision regarding your graduate study. Student Outcome Data

  APA Office of Program Consultation and Accreditation: 750 First Street, NE; Washington, DC 20002-4242  Phone: 202-336-5979

Further, the clinical program is ecosystemically oriented in that it trains students to consider the role of diverse systems in creating and/or remedying individual and social problems. For example, in just one course the role of individual, family, ethnicity, religion, dominant culture, the legal and medical systems as well as historical time are all considered when reviewing the causes and potential interventions for child abuse.

While students receive an exceptional grounding in traditional clinical assessment and intervention, they are also taught to consider the potential value of advocacy, consultation or public policy work in helping both individuals and whole groups of clients with similar problems. For example, psychotherapy can be of great value to gay or lesbian clients struggling with the social pressures of the coming out process but the need for such treatment might be greatly reduced by applying clinical knowledge and skills in changing social mores and the plethora of discriminatory laws that create the hostile environment with which these clients struggle.

Emphasis Areas for Fresno Program

At the Fresno location, all clinical psychology students have the opportunity to select one or more programs of emphasis to develop areas of focused study and clinical expertise in addition to their basic education in clinical psychology. These emphasis areas are ecosystemic child, civil forensics and health. Alliant students may elect to be trained as generalists sampling from any of the emphasis area courses.

Special features of the clinical programs in Fresno include the campus-based practica in the Psychological Services Center under the supervision of the clinic supervisors and/or faculty. The proximity of the Fresno Campus to national parks and lakes offers a wide variety of opportunities for sight seeing, hiking, kayaking, skiing and other recreational activities, to offset the intensive pace of doctoral training. These amenities combine with a relatively low cost of living to make the strong Fresno programs especially attractive.

Accreditation

The Fresno Clinical PhD Program is a scholar-practitioner program fully accredited by the Committee on Accreditation of the American Psychological Association. It is designed for students interested in mixing clinical practice, research and teaching in their professional careers. The coursework is focused primarily on clinical training, with a strong secondary research emphasis and a tertiary focus on training students as teachers of psychology.

Practica

The student's practica are similarly focused in that students not only complete extensive clinical and research practica, they also complete a teaching practicum designed to prepare them to teach at the undergraduate level. A traditional, independent, quantitative or qualitative PhD dissertation is required. The PhD program takes five years to complete, with the fifth year being spent in a full-time internship.

American Psychological Association office of Program Consultation and Accreditation:
750 First Street, N.E.
Washington DC 20002-4242.
Phone: 202-336-5979