Research and Clinical Training
RESEARCH TRAINING
Counseling psychology students at Maryland receive intensive research training through completion of required projects (thesis and dissertation), courses on research methods and statistics, and participation in additional research projects. Students who aspire to research-oriented careers find ample opportunities to conduct research, present at professional conferences, and publish their work in scholarly journals. The quality of our research training is evident in the scholarly accomplishments of our graduates, many of whom have gone on to become highly regarded scholars and editors of scholarly journals.
At the heart of our research training is the advisee-advisor relationship. Advisees work closely with their advisor on their thesis and dissertation studies, as well as additional research. Typically, the advisory relationship becomes an important source of professional support for students, including support for developing and pursuing one’s career goals, identifying one’s areas of relative strength and weakness, and navigating the inevitable challenges that arise in a rigorous graduate program.
Incoming students are initially assigned an advisor who appears to be a good fit for each student’s interests. However, students may switch advisors if they believe a different faculty member would be a better fit in terms of interests or advising style. Even if students decide to stay with the advisor they are initially assigned, they are encouraged to develop relationships with other counseling psychology faculty. Many of our students graduate having conducted research with multiple faculty members.
Students who enter the program having already completed an empirical thesis or graduate level coursework in research and statistics can sometimes have these requirements waived. Most of our students publish papers in scholarly journals during their time in the program.
CLINICAL TRAINING
Our counseling psychology program offers students intensive and high quality clinical training, with a focus on counseling of older adolescents and adults. Much of the training occurs through a series of seminars called didactic practica, each of which focuses on a different practice area (e.g., individual counseling, career counseling, group counseling, supervision). The structure of these courses reflects our commitment to the scientist-practitioner model by featuring simultaneous instruction in research, theory, and practice. Students attend a weekly seminar and discuss scholarly work related to intervention. At the same time, students work with clients and receive intensive supervision for their clinical work. This clinical work typically takes place in the University Counseling Center, a state-of-the-art training facility that serves the mental health and developmental needs of university students. The diverse student body at University of Maryland enriches the multicultural training environment for our doctoral students.
Students complete a number of additional practice-relevant courses, including a year-long assessment sequence, multicultural issues, and ethics. The final component of the clinical training is the predoctoral internship. Our students are very successful in securing APA accredited internships, as can be seen in our Student Outcomes Page. Most students complete their internships in university counseling centers; however, a sizable minority of students completes internships in Veterans Affairs hospitals, other hospitals, and community health centers. Click here for a listing of many of the sites at which our students have completed their internship.
In the years just before going on internship, students often seek additional training in counseling and assessment through externships in the following settings:
- DC area externships in university counseling centers and hospitals (e.g., University of Maryland Counseling Center, Towson University Counseling Center, American University Counseling Center, Catholic University Counseling Center, Baltimore Veterans Affairs Medical Center, Washington DC Veterans Affairs Medical Center, Howard Community College Counseling Center)
- University Health Center
Click here for more specific information about some of the externship sites at which our students have trained.