Department of Psychiatry

Division of Clinical Psychology

About our Program

The internship training program is based on a clinician-scholar model of education and training. Within this model, we aim to train students who will make contributions to the field of psychology and to general human welfare, either in the scientific domain, the practice domain or both. Graduates recognize that psychological practice is based on the science of psychology, which is influenced by the professional practice of psychology. Throughout the training year, interns are exposed to and work with faculty who serve as scientist-practitioner role models, as well as faculty who have adopted a more exclusively practitioner role. We believe that this exposure to a variety of role models provides the best real-world clinical training, as well as exposure to the excitement and challenge of integrating scientific inquiry with clinical practice.

The UCD internship training program requires a high level of energy, an openness to new experiences, an eagerness to learn, and the ability to develop and maintain effective working relationships with a diverse group of supervisors, trainees, staff, and patients. Each trainee is assigned an advisor, whose role is to provide a continuous focus throughout the internship year on professional-personal development as a psychologist. It is the advisor’s role to assist in planning the intern’s training year experiences and to monitor progress towards the acquisition of competencies and goals. The advisor meets quarterly with the intern to discuss and integrate the evaluations from the rotation supervisors and the intern’s self evaluation. Interns also provide evaluations of their supervisors, coursework, and clinical experiences. Such mutual feedback is based on the maintenance of an open dialogue between members of the faculty and trainees.