Tracks & Elective Emphasis Areas, San Diego PhD Program

 The clinical PhD program is designed to provide advanced doctoral students with the opportunity to complete an additional expertise in an area of interest or to take electives to enhance the required course offerings. This Track and Elective Emphasis area option prepares one to pursue further specialization at the post-doctoral level. Elective courses are routinely offered at least once a year for all tracks and emphasis areas.

Above: Dr. Adele Rabin, Professor and Founding Dean of CSPP

Health Track

The Health Track's focus is on preparing psychologists for professional activities in medical settings with primarily non-mental health populations. Courses in the Health Track emphasize clinical consulting, health psychology interventions, applied psychophysiology and biofeedback treatments, and cognitive/behavioral management of medical problems such as pain.

Features:

• Mind/Body relationships and Mind/Body Medicine
• Management of Chronic Illness and Pain
• Lifestyle modification (smoking cessation, obesity, exercise, etc)
• Empirical validation of Complimentary and Alternative Medicine (CAM) interventions
• Socialization into medical settings through Clerkships, Practica, and Internships

Courses in the Health Track include:

• PSY 6620 Introduction to Behavioral Medicine
• PSY 6621 Clerkship in Health Psychology
• PSY 6622 Psychophysiology/Biofeedback
• PSY 6624 Cultural Aspects in Health Psychology
• PSY 7625/7626 Clinical Medicine I and II
• PSY 7633 Health Psychology Intervention: Researfch and Practicum
• PSY 8555 Neuropsychology

As well as several health psychology related sections of courses. Health Track students fulfill all the basic requirements of the clinical PhD program. A few advanced courses, which are required for non-Health Track students, are not mandatory for Health Track students.

Family/Child Psychology Emphasis

The family/child psychology emphasis is designed for students who are interested in developing proficiency in evaluation, treatment and research with children and families.  Courses cover the entire life span, from infancy through old age and are presented from various theoretical viewpoints including family-systems, psychodynamic, and cognitive-behavioral. Emphasis students take the same core and elective courses as Family Track students, but are not in the Track sections of required courses.

The program supports the study of ethnic and cultural issues as they affect the individual and the family.  Faculty research interests include family violence, child abuse and neglect, adolescent development, childhood social competence and peer relationships, early childhood psychopathology, aging, child resiliency, divorce, child custody, step families, and process and outcomes of family interventions.

It is suggested that students take at least one year of professional training placement in settings, which emphasize interactions with children and families. PhD dissertations addressing family/child issues are common at the San Diego campus.

Required courses include Theory and Practice of Psychotherapy-Child, Family Psychotherapy, Developmental Psychology, Family Systems Theory, and Developmental Psychopathology. Students are expected to take one PSY 8551 Clinical Consultation course in a group emphasizing family or child issues. One additional course is required. The following are typical elective selections:

• PSY 7311 Couples Therapy
• PSY 7509 Psychoeducational Assessment of Children and Adolescents
• PSY 7514 Advanced Assessment Elective: Clinical Inference - Children
• PSY 8542 Advanced Family Therapy
• PSY 8543 Family Violence: Child Abuse

In addition to academic coursework and field training, students in the family/child emphasis participate in a student-organized interest group.  This group sponsors monthly meetings where speakers present cutting edge material in areas such as adolescents in crisis, parenting skills training programs, and child custody evaluations.

Forensic Psychology Emphasis

The forensic psychology emphasis focuses on the relationship and interdependency of law, social science and clinical practice.  It provides the basic foundation for post-graduate training for a career in forensic clinical psychology.  The emphasis requires the completion of an introductory course in forensics, which acquaints the student with the nature of the legal system and the varied roles of psychologists within it.  This introduction also includes training in the basics of testimony—the preparation of a defensible report; the appropriate presentation of one's qualifications; the persuasive presentation of psychological science to a judge, jury, or within an amicus brief; and the increased ability to withstand cross-examination.  Additional courses address psychological assessment, violence, antisocial behavior and other clinical topics.  Students also have the option of taking an organizational psychology advanced seminar addressing conflict management or dispute resolution.  Students are expected to address an issue in forensic psychology in their dissertation.  They are also encouraged, but not required, to procure forensic training in their practicum or internship.  Students are expected to take one PSY 8551 Clinical Consultation course focusing on forensic issues.

Four courses are required to complete the emphasis area, two of which are mandatory:

• PSY 6631 Introduction to Clinical Forensics
• PSY 7514 Advanced Assessment Elective: Clinical Inference/Forensic

The student will select two of the following offerings to complete the emphasis:

• ORG 8800 Advanced Seminar in Organizational Studies: Dispute Resolution/Conflict Management/Labor Relations-Employment Law (Only one of these may count toward the emphasis)
• PSY 8543 Family Violence: Child Abuse
• PSY 8544 Interpartner and Spousal Abuse
• PSY 8805 Advanced Seminar in Theoretical Issues: Forensic Family/Child Psychology
• PSY 8805 Conduct Disorders and Antisocial Behavior

It is expected that PhD dissertations will focus on a topic related to forensic psychology.

Multicultural and International Emphasis Area

The Alliant approach to multiculturalism is inclusive: It incorporates diversity in many respects including race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, geographical and international, age, social class, religion, and disability.  Central to traditional clinical psychology is the examination of factors known to be relevant to mental health/mental illness as western society defines them.  The goal of this emphasis area is to go beyond the traditional western, majority cultural viewpoint so that students might have the basic preparation to focus on cultural and international encounters in professional psychology.  Whereas traditional psychology focuses primarily on individual psychological activity, cultural psychology is based on the view that cultural and societal level influences on the individual can be best understood by incorporating societal systemic variables and cultural contexts.  The international component of this emphasis area has recently been added and is under development.  The emphasis will provide students with opportunities to prepare for clinical licensure, research, teaching, and consulting in the area of cultural diversity.

Students in this emphasis take coursework in these broadly defined multicultural and international areas and complete a dissertation relevant to some aspect of cultural or international psychology.  They must also arrange for at least one of their practicum/internship professional training placements in a setting serving a culturally diverse population.  The large majority of our training sites serve such populations.  Students are expected to take one of the PSY 8551 Clinical Consultation courses in a section emphasizing diversity issues.

In addition to the cultural psychology courses required of all students, a total of twelve units in the multicultural or international psychology are required.  They may include:

• ORG 7330 Cultural Diversity in Organizations
• PSY 6014 Qualitative Research Methods
• PSY 6624 Cultural Aspects of Health Psychology
• PSY 6643 Cross-Cultural Topics (East-West Psychologies, Holocaust, Psychology and Spirituality, Mexican History, Ritual and Healing)
• PSY 6644 Ecology/Psychology
• PSY 6654 Psychology of Ethnic Diversity (Asian, African, Latino and Native American)
• PSY 7311 Couples Therapy: Lesbian and Gay Couples
• PSY 7514 Advanced Assessment Elective: Clinical Inference—Cultural
• PSY 7610 Cultural Seminar: Psychology of Women
• PSY 7612 Women and Gender: Historical Perspective
• PSY 7614 Human Sexuality
• PSY 8540 Family Therapy with Ethnic Families
• PSY 8800 Advanced Seminar: Theory and Practice in Cultural Psychology

Relevant courses required of all clinical doctoral students:

• PSY 6129 Multi-Cultural Competency Development
• PSY 7161 Cultural Psychology: Delivery of Services

Students should note that this emphasis area is under active development and as such, continues to undergo revision.  For example, we are developing the international component and examining integrative psychology principles for possible inclusion.

Psychodynamic Emphasis

The psychodynamic emphasis provides students with a coherent practical and theoretical framework to practice general psychology in a variety of settings with children and adults.  At the San Diego campus, the psychodynamic emphasis curriculum gives students exposure to coursework and supervision integrating object relations, self psychology, analytic psychology, existential psychology and cognitive, science-based approaches to unconscious processes.  Coursework and supervision prepare students for further professional development and specialization beyond the doctorate.

Students in the psychodynamic emphasis area are required to complete at least four electives among the psychodynamic courses, complete at least a one year internship with psychodynamic supervision, complete a dissertation in an area pertinent to psychodynamic theory, research, or application and enroll in one PSY 8551 Clinical Consultation section incorporating a psychodynamic emphasis.  Elective psychodynamic courses include:

• PSY 7643 Transference and Counter-Transference (3 units)
• PSY 8500 Clinical Elective: Advanced Psychodynamic Interventions (3 units)
• PSY 8500 Clinical Elective: Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy with Adolescents (3 units)
• PSY 8800 Advanced Seminar: Theoretical Psychodynamic Issues (3 units)
• PSY 8800 Advanced Seminar: Object Relations (3 units)
• PSY 8800 Advanced Seminar: Research and Empirical Foundations of Psychoanalysis (3 units)