Advancing Clinical Science: The PCSAS Blog
- Accreditation Updates for Clinical Psychology Programs (4)
- Building Trust in Research Practices (1)
- Clinical Psychology Education Structure (1)
- Clinical Psychology Training (4)
- Community Engagement in Psychology Research (1)
- Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion in Psychology Training (2)
- Ethics in Psychological Research (2)
- Financial Challenges in Psychology Training (1)
- Graduate Student Well-Being (3)
- Mental Health and Therapy Insights (3)
- Mentorship and Career Guidance (4)
- Mentorship and Communication (3)
- Navigating Graduate School (5)
- Newsletter (71)
- Open Science in Psychology (1)
- Predoctoral Internship Preparation (3)
- Professional Development for Therapists (6)
- Psychology Graduate Student Resources (8)
- Psychology Services (1)
- Psychology Training Reform and Policy (1)
- Sleep Health and Academic Life (1)
- Stress Management for Students (2)
- Work-Life Balance in Academia (2)
Child Development (5) Clinical Psychology (32) Clinical Science (14) Clinical Science Education (4) Clinical Science Program (4) Clinical Training (6) Data Collection (3) Diversity in Psychology (5) Gabriela Memba (4) Graduate Education (4) Graduate Student Resources (6) Graduate Training (5) Internship Preparation (4) Mental Health (10) Mental Health Disparities (7) Mentorship in Psychology (4) PCSAS (9) PCSAS Accreditation (4) Physiological Reactivity (3) Professional Development (8) Professional Standards in Psychology (4) Psychological Research (5) Psychology Education (9) Psychology Training (8) Psychology Training Programs (5) Skin Conductance (3) Social Justice (4) Social Justice in Psychology (5) Stress Management (3) Work-Life Balance (4)
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Financial Debt and Stress in Clinical Psychology Doctoral Students
by Erica Szkody, Ph.D.* & Steven Hobaica, Ph.D.*** Stony Brook University; ** The Trevor Project Graduate student debt loads are steadily rising, and financial stress remains a significant stressor for many graduate students. In our recent study (Szkody et al., 2022; (N = 912), the average clinical psychology doctoral student loan debt was $76,000 by […]
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How Neighborhood Factors Contribute to Well-Being and the Etiology of Psychopathology in Children and Adolescents: A Path Forward
by Estelle Berger, M.S., University of Oregon The places we live and the spaces we inhabit can play a significant role in shaping our mental and general health. This is especially true for children and adolescents as they develop physically, psychologically, and socially. Below, I critically discuss the literature on this topic. Currently, over half of […]
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Considerations for Collecting Psychophysiological Data in Early Childhood
by Gabriela Memba, M.A., University at Buffalo Over the past few decades, the field of clinical psychology has incorporated physiology-based theory and methodology into its research (Cacioppo et al., 2007). This growing field of study is known as psychophysiology, which is defined as the scientific study of social, psychological, and behavioral phenomena and their relation […]
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Science Communication: 6 Reasons for Increased Public Engagement among Clinical Psychologists
by Matt Mattoni, Temple University No academic field relates to our experience of everyday life as much as psychology: our thoughts, emotions, behaviors, and social life are all wrapped into this one subject. It is unsurprising that psychology has become one of the most popular college majors, and that innumerable books, movies, and shows build […]
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Integrating a Developmental Psychopathology Framework into Therapeutic Practice
by Sky Cardwell, M.S., Pennsylvania State University As clinical science training models emphasize the importance of integrated clinical research and practice, I believe developmental psychology frameworks should be incorporated. The field of developmental psychopathology seeks to examine the development and maintenance of psychopathologies and the pathways and mechanisms involved in this development (Hinshaw, 2017). Though developmental […]
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Barriers to Entry: Systematic Barriers at the Undergraduate Level to Increasing Diversity Among Professional Psychologists
by Kate Carosella, University of Minnesota There exists a stark mismatch between the diversity of the United States population and that of the psychology workforce (American Psychological Association, 2017; Jones et al., 2021; United States Census Bureau, 2022). This discrepancy has persisted despite repeated, widespread attempts to increase representation (McHolland et al., 1990; Rogers & […]
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Surviving and (even) Thriving in Clinical Science Training: A DBT Skills Toolkit for Trainees – Part 1
by Samantha Hellberg, MA*, Jennifer Kirby PhD*, Tiffany Hopkins, PhD***University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill**University of North Carolina, School of Medicine Let’s be real: graduate school can be tough. Students are tasked with juggling countless roles and responsibilities, all while working to develop their professional identity as researchers and clinicians (McElhinney 2008). Many clinical psychology trainees […]
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Improving the Computational Reproducibility of Clinical Science: Tools for Open Data and Code
by Jeremy Eberle, MA University of Virginia Open data and analysis code promote computational reproducibility, or reproducing the results of an analysis when applying the same code to the same data (Nosek & Errington, 2020). Yet, in a random sample of articles published in “best practice” clinical psychology journals in 2017, only 2% reported data available […]
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Advice for APPIC Virtual Internship Interviews from Someone Who Just Completed the Process
by Lili Gloe, MAMichigan State University Virtual psychology internship interviews have become the norm during COVID-19. In 2021, 98% of internship programs conducted their interviews exclusively virtually and many continued to do so in 2022. And it seems likely that, in some capacity, virtual internship interviews are here to stay (see APPIC 2021 Survey results). […]
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HiTOP and Clinical Psychology Training: A Conversation with Dr. Aidan Wright
by Matt MattoniTemple University As clinical psychologists, we rely on normed structures and classifications of psychopathology for research, therapy, and assessment. The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) has long dominated the field, despite flaws of arbitrary cutoffs and boundaries, within-disorder heterogeneity, and between-disorder comorbidity. To address classification-related issues such as these, numerous […]
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Models of Personality-Psychopathology Relations
by Alexander Williams, MSNorthwestern University Cross-sectional inquiries make clear that personality and psychopathology are reliably linked (Kotov et al., 2010). For decades, theorists have proposed and studied a set of models that purport to account for the overlap between personality and psychopathology. Research in this area has the potential to guide prevention efforts (via targeting […]
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Why Clinical Scientists Should Care About Genetics
by Sarah E. Paul, M.A., Washington University in St. Louis Psychopathology is moderately-to-highly heritable, with ~30-80% of the population variance in mental illness attributable to genetic influences (Pettersson et al., 2019; Polderman et al., 2015). The field of psychiatric genetics is making new discoveries at an extraordinarily rapid pace, paralleling the dramatic reduction in cost of […]
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A Call for Social Justice Advocacy in Clinical Science Training Program
by Sarah E. Paul, M.A., Washington University in St. Louis It should not be news to anyone that clinical scientists and training programs have a long way to go to achieve Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) in clinical training, research, and practice. Nor should it be a surprise that the field of psychology has a reprehensible […]
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Alan Kraut Farewell Letter
by Robert W. Levenson, University of California, Berkeley As many of you know, Alan Kraut is stepping down after serving for six years as the Executive Director of PCSAS. This is truly a bittersweet moment for us all. On the one hand, we will greatly miss Alan’s steady hand, tireless energy, sophisticated knowledge, and sense […]
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Training the Next Generation of Clinical Psychologists: How Do We Move the Field Forward?
by David A. Sbarra, Ph.D., University of Arizona & Howard Berenbaum, Ph.D., University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Let’s begin with a thought experiment. Close your eyes and try to forget everything you know about what clinical psychologists do and how they are trained. Forget clinical hours. Forget internship. Forget classes, requirements, advisors, and advisees. Just let […]
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Chatbots: The Future of Psychotherapy?
by Linnea Sepe-Forrest, Indiana University Bloomington In an ideal world, there would be enough therapists to serve everyone’s needs across the world. Therapists would not experience any burnout or require high compensation for their services. While this sounds like an impossible feat, many companies are attempting to address unmet therapeutic needs by providing psychotherapy through artificial intelligence […]
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The Conflation of Race and Ethnicity: A Psychological Misconception
by Katrina Rbeiz, Vanderbilt University After conducting multiple clinical assessments and taking psychological surveys online, I kept coming across the same issue of ethnicity and race being treated as the same measure of identity. ‘Ethnicity’ boxes would sometimes only include racial categories, and ‘race’ boxes would dismiss a few identities altogether, relegating any missed categories as […]
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The Art of Psychological Science: Tips on How to Talk About Manualized Treatments
by Brendan Whitney, M.A., University of Iowa In the field of psychological practice, there is often a debate over whether clinical practice is an “art” or a “science.” This generally arises when discussing the utility of “manualized” or “evidence-based” treatments. For example, some clinicians associate manualized treatments with being “cold”, and fear that their use (i.e., […]
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Clinician History Interview: Danielle M. Novick, PhD
by Molly Bowdring, M.S., University of Pittsburgh For many graduate students, the decision to pursue a clinical or research career is a difficult one. For some though, it is a clear choice. When Dr. Danielle M. Novick was a graduate student at the University of Pittsburgh (2002-2010), she was excitedly intending to pursue a tenure-track research […]
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Harnessing Sleep to Improve Academic Performance
by Laila Volpe, SRI International and Incoming Doctoral Student, University of Washington When faced with an overwhelming amount of work, students often feel as if there aren’t enough hours in the day. To compensate, many choose to stay up later or wake up earlier, with some even pulling “all-nighters.” One study on sleep patterns in college […]
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NSF GRFP Application Advice
by Julia Spandorfer and Rachel Walsh, Temple University The National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship (NSF GRFP) is a prestigious, 3-year fellowship open to students in STEM fields. Awardees are given a generous stipend for three years and their degree-granting institution is also given a cost-of-education allowance to put towards tuition. However, for clinical psychology students, […]
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Mental Health in Communities of Color Emerging from the Pandemic
by Erika Roach, M.A., University of California, Berkeley Mental Health in Communities of Color Emerging from the Pandemic The COVID-19 era has been challenging on multiple fronts. While some degree of normalcy is emerging, so too are the mental health ramifications of the past year. As Dr. David Williams, Harvard Professor of Public Health, said, “There […]
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Tips for Getting a Predoctoral NRSA: Perspective from a Woman Scientist (and Her Imposter Syndrome)
by Parisa Kaliush, University of Utah If you’re like me, you entered your clinical psychology doctoral program with serious doubts about your potential as a researcher. As a woman-identified graduate student, I was acutely aware of longstanding wage and status disparities between men and women psychologists. I convinced myself that I would earn my Ph.D., become […]
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Developing a Career as a Practitioner Who Conducts Research
by Jacqueline B. Persons, Ph.D., Oakland Cognitive Behavior Therapy Center and University of California at Berkeley I’m writing this article to describe my career path as a clinician in private practice who conducts research, with a view to encouraging trainees and graduates of Psychological Clinical Science Accreditation System (PCSAS) programs to consider following it. My career […]