The Clinical Psychology Ph.D. Program

Our program integrates education and training in traditional clinical psychology with innovations from community psychology. Our core faculty is composed of both community and clinical psychologists and our adjunct faculty is drawn from accomplished clinicians in practice in the community. The program, which has a public service orientation, prepares students to work with underserved and disadvantaged populations and agencies that serve them. The program teaches students to develop and implement effective preventive and clinical interventions based on individual, group, and community mechanisms of change.

The goal of the program is to educate students in the professional application of psychological science and methods to the amelioration of human problems through clinical practice and applied research. In addition to traditional course work, the program offers prospective students supervised experiences in applied service settings such as clinics, schools, public and private mental health agencies.

Students can gain expertise in a number of specialty areas including psychological assessment, cognitive-behavioral therapy, psychotherapy, parent-child interaction, treatment and prevention of depression, substance use and abuse, self-help groups, high risk behavior in adolescents, and assessment and intervention with personality disorders. Students also are exposed to theories and practice of consultation, prevention, and program development and evaluation.

An integration of theory, research, and practice is emphasized. Research and practicum experiences receive intensive individual supervision. Graduates are prepared to pursue professional careers in public or private service organizations and are equipped to enter academic/research settings.

The clinical program has been fully accredited by the American Psychological Association since 2005.

Commission on Accreditation
American Psychological Association
750 First Street, N.E.
Washington, D.C. 20002-4242
202.336.5979

Curriculum
The curriculum is designed to blend the scientist-practitioner and action-researcher models of education and professional activity. It has been designed to provide sound foundation in core areas of psychology, a broad and general preparation for research and professional practice, and an opportunity to gain knowledge and expertise in speciality areas of interest and relevance to the student’s career.

Resources
The Psychology Training Clinic is based in the psychology department and is a primary site for clinical practicum training. The Clinic has facilities for individual and group research. Clientele served include persons affiliated with WSU and the greater Wichita community. The Clinic Director provides individual and group supervision complemented by supervision by other members of the core program faculty. We also have a number of carefully selected external practicum training sites and additional clinical supervision is provided by adjunct faculty and other on site supervisors. Faculty maintain working relationships with a number of government and community agencies which provide a source for research and supervised clinical and community practica. These agencies which serve the approximately 500,000 people in the Wichita metropolitan area include the public school system, Head Start and Early Head Start, University of Kansas School of Medicine-Wichita and regional hospitals, local and state departments of health and mental health, private clinics and many not-for-profit social service agencies.

Concentrated Specialty
Each student will have at least one concentrated specialty. The student chooses this specialty in accordance with his or her pattern of interests and availability faculty expertise. The intent is for the student to develop expertise in a given area, e.g., methodology, therapeutic interventions, measurement, children’s issues, etc. The specialty is reflected in research practicum experiences and elective course work, and is declared at the time the student requests to complete the qualifying examination.

A pre-doctoral clinical internship is required of all clinical students. The internship must be approved by APA or APPIC. Of the 25 students applying for a one year internship in the past seven years, 24 secured paid positions, 19 (76%) at APA approved sites and 6 at APPIC approved internships.

In addition to the required core curriculum students may take electives within and outside of the psychology department. There are may options available for elective educational experiences including the School of Education, School of Health Professionals, University of Kansas School of Medicine-Wichita, and the Hugo Wall Center for Urban Studies.

The psychology department does not offer a terminal Master’s degree. However, after the student has successfully competed Foundations courses, the Second Year Research Project, the Research Methods sequence, and an additional six credit hours the degree of Master’s of Arts in general psychology is awarded.

Student Information

The following tables provide information on our student body since initial APA accreditation in 2005.

Table 1. Data on Incoming Classes


Table 2. Data on Internships


Table 3. Data on Graduation Outcomes


Licensure: All but two graduates of the program are licensed. One graduate is physically disabled and unable to practice at the professional level. The other went on to complete medical school and is currently in their second year of psychiatric residency and did not seek psychology licensure.

Over the past seven years the mean number of years our students have taken to complete the program is 6.04 (Mdn. 5). Those coming in with a Bachelor’s degree took 6.0 (Mdn. 5) years and those with a Master’s degree on admission took 6.2 (including time in their previous MA program; Mdn. 6). Fifty percent completed the program in 5 years, 19% completed in 6 years, 4% in 7 years and 20% took longer than 7 years.

All students applying for professional licensure in their respective states succeeded. One student is disabled and did not apply. The other went on to complete medical school and did not apply. Attrition rate for al reasons since the program was accredited was 15%.

Most successful applicants have an undergraduate degree in psychology with coursework in statistics, research methods, and history and systems of psychology. Admission to the program requires a minimum GPA of 3.00, submission of official Verbal and Quantitative GRE scores, four letters of reference, and a career/goals statement. Application materials must be submitted by January 15th.

Wichita provides a rich setting for our training program. As a public university Wichita State has long-established ties to the core leadership of our human service organizations, our medical and educational training facilities and business. These connections provide excellent resources for outstanding collaborative university-community educational and training experiences.

Learn more about Wichita.

Financial Assistance
With few exceptions, all students enrolled in the clinical program receive financial assistance through Graduate Teaching Assistantships (GTAs). The GTA requires a service commitment of 20 hours each semester of the academic year and the annual stipend for this work is about $6500. This GTA waives 100% of any out-of-state tuition which is approximately $6500 for 11 CEUs as well as a portion of in-state tuition as well. The proportion of this in-state waiver ranges from 75% for assisting teaching to 100% for direct classroom instruction. For the 2007-2008 academic year in-state graduate tuition is $218.56 per credit hour and out-of-state graduate tuition is $586.05. Most of our graduate students take between 11 and 12 credit hours per semester. Additionally there are other financial packages including fellowship and scholarship opportunities as well as paid supervised clinical and community external practicum rotations. Interested students should call the Wichita State University of Financial Aid at 316.978.3440 for more information.

Or address inquiries to:

Darwin Dorr, Ph.D., Professor
Director of Clinical Training
Psychology Department
Wichita State University
1845 N. Fairmount
Wichita, KS 67260-0034