San Francisco Clinical PhD: A Scholar Practitioner Program

CSPP's PhD program on the San Francisco campus is a scholar practitioner program that gives students the knowledge, skills, and professional attitudes necessary to evaluate psychological functioning and provide effective interventions with diverse clients across a range of settings. Equally important, we educate students to conduct applied research and to contribute actively to the knowledge base in psychology.

APA Education & Training Outcomes

The CSPP San Francisco Clinical Psychology PhD program is accredited by the American Psychological Association (APA), which requires that we provide student outcome data, including time to completion, program costs, internships, attrition and licensure. Please follow the link below for that information. We hope this information will help you to make an informed decision regarding your graduate study. Student Outcome Data

APA Office of Program Consultation and Accreditation: 750 First Street, NE; Washington, DC 20002-4242  Phone: 202-336-5979

Tauber Fellowships: This new funding opportunity will be awarded to five incoming San Francisco CSPP students. The Tauber Fellowships will provide each student with $10,000 in support per year. Both PhD and PsyD students are elegible. The Fellowship application deadline is February 10, 2009. See the webpage for more information.

Click this link to view profiles of some current CSPP San Francisco PhD students.

Our program subscribes to the belief that effective professional psychologists must be aware of and responsive to the broader social context in which they function. Thus, students must attain proficiency in providing services to individuals of diverse cultural and socioeconomic backgrounds. To achieve this goal, we infuse diversity throughout our entire curriculum, offer courses focusing on diverse populations, and provide clinical training experiences that offer exposure to a range of populations.

The program as a whole is designed to address all five levels of the biopsychosocial model of human functioning: biological, psychological, familial, community, and sociocultural. With regard to theoretical orientations to treatment, we encourage students to develop a personal integration of contemporary psychodynamic, cognitive-behavioral, family systems, and multicultural approaches. Because of the extensive clinical course offerings at CSPP-San Francisco, students can develop in-depth expertise in one or more of these orientations by selecting sections of required courses, elective courses, field placements (practica), and supervisors that emphasize a specific theoretical orientation in therapy.

PhD Research Seminars

The cornerstone of the PhD program's research training is a series of PhD Research Seminars: small groups that include a member of the program faculty and students at various levels in the program working on topics within the faculty member's areas of research interest and expertise. All students enroll in a research seminar as soon as they enter the program and continue in the seminar for at least four years or until they complete a dissertation proposal. In these seminars, students work initially on a First Research Project and subsequently on a PhD Dissertation. The First Research Project provides entering students with experience working on an independent research project from start to finish. It culminates at the end of the students' second year with a paper that they submit to their seminar instructor and a poster that they present at the annual campus research conference. More advanced students use the seminar as a framework for designing and getting feedback on their dissertation proposal and working toward completing their research.

Consent of the instructor is required to enter a research seminar, and matching of new students to research seminars is done at the end of the second week of the fall semester. Students have an opportunity to meet research seminar faculty during orientation and may visit seminars and have individual appointments with instructors during the first two weeks of classes. Assignments are made on the basis of students' interests and preferences and their match with faculty preferences and expertise. In past years, a majority of students have been placed into their first choice seminar, but we cannot guarantee that this will be the case for all students.

Duration of the Program

The standard PhD curriculum is five years and is designed to give students the opportunity to complete the dissertation before beginning a full-time internship in the fifth year. However, students may extend their time to take additional courses, complete research work, or spread their internship over two years (usually, the fifth and sixth years). Students must complete a minimum of 60 units including all the first and second year courses, finish their First Research Project, and pass all preliminary examination subtests before advancing to doctoral candidacy.

Personal Psychotherapy

The program faculty believe that for many clinical students, personal psychotherapy can be an extremely valuable tool through which to better understand oneself, become comfortable with asking for and receiving psychological help, learning about one's emotional vulnerabilities and "triggers," and understanding the impact of one's behavior and affect in the clinical encounter.

As a general suggestion, we recommend that PhD clinical students consider seeking personal psychotherapy (individual, group, couple, family, or a combination) on a weekly basis at some point in their graduate training. However, such psychotherapy is entirely voluntary and not required to complete the program. Students who follow this recommendation arrange and pay for their own therapy, which ideally would be provided by a licensed doctoral-level therapist (psychologist, psychiatrist, doctorate-holding LCSW or LMFT). Upon request, the PhD Clinical Program can provide a list of moderate fee psychotherapists in the community. Students who experience emotional difficulties that interfere with performance in the program may be required to receive psychotherapy (at their own expense) as a way to address these problems. 

Accreditation

The CSPP Clinical PhD Program in San Francisco has full accreditation from the Commission on Accreditation of the American Psychological Association.

American Psychological Association office of Program Consultation and Accreditation:
750 First Street, N.E.
Washington DC 20002-4242
Phone: 202-336-5979