Doctor of Psychology in Clinical Psychology

Philadelphia College of Osteopathic Medicine offers a Doctor of Psychology (PsyD) in Clinical Psychology.  Graduates of this program will be prepared to assume all responsibilities in a broad range of clinical settings.  The program recruits in-practice professionals who have a master's degree and are working as a mental health professional in human services.  This population brings a high level of maturity, established skills, diverse backgrounds and strong motivation to succeed. The program is designed to be completed in five years including course work, practicum, internship and dissertation.

The PsyD program is an 89-credit multi-year curriculum that integrates the Department of Psychology's interdisciplinary core graduate courses, competencies listed by the National Council of Schools and Programs of Professional Psychology, and core areas recommended by the American Psychological Association's Committee on Accreditation and the National Register. 

The program aims to educate professional clinical psychologists and enable them to meet the individual and collective mental health needs of all persons with attention to diversity of gender, race, ethnicity, social class, sexual orientation, religion, age, and abilities. They will treat patients through the use of comprehensive, empirically-supported cognitive and behavioral therapies, in collaboration with primary care physicians and other health professionals in an effort to provide holistic multidisciplinary health care services. 

The PsyD program aims to train psychologists to work with underserved individuals.  It seeks to train culturally competent clinical psychologists who will be leaders, advocates, clinicians, educators, and supervisors, with a commitment to scholarship and the application of research methodologies to answer clinical questions in their daily practices and communities.

Clinical training opportunities include the Center for Brief Therapy, which serves as a practicum site for masters and doctoral level students.  In addition, the center offers a pre-doctoral internship program for training future psychologists through participation in the Association of Psychology Post-doctoral and Pre-doctoral Internship Centers (APPIC).  The pre-doctoral internship in clinical psychology is designed to train future psychologists to work in health care settings as providers of comprehensive psychological services that stress interdisciplinary collaboration. 

Trainees have the opportunity to:

• Work in the Center for Brief Therapy and the PCOM's healthcare centers
• Collaborate with medical faculty, physicians, and medical and allied health students in the following primary care settings: family medicine, geriatrics,  Cambria division, Lancaster Division, and Roxborough division
• Provide clinical and behavioral health interventions in consultative, individual, and group settings
• Build skills for using empirically supported and cognitive behavior therapy focused treatments in practice
• Complete psycho-educational and behavioral assessments
• Receive intensive clinical supervision from highly skilled clinical psychologists
• Interact with psychology department faculty to gain experience in teaching, writing, or presentation
• Provide services to the community through mental health outreach programs
• Supervise students in training
• Participate in clinical research