Orientation

Our APA- and CPA-accredited Graduate Program in Clinical Psychology at the University of Victoria provides high quality training in the knowledge base and clinical skills essential to effective psychological research and practice. The program adheres to the Boulder scientist-practitioner model of clinical psychology training, providing a balanced emphasis on (1) science and research, (2) application and practice, and (3) the meaningful integration of science and practice. Our ultimate goal is to train scientist-practitioner psychologists who will contribute to the scientific knowledge base in clinical psychology and who are prepared to offer effective and ethical professional services in response to the changing needs of diverse individuals, families, groups and organizations.

The Graduate Program in Clinical Psychology strives to develop psychologists with sound knowledge and evidenced-based clinical skills:

1. To assess, diagnosis, educate and intervene with individuals, families and groups experiencing adjustment challenges and mental health concerns;
2. To offer psycho-education and prevention services to those at high risk;
3. To consult and offer program development and evaluation services to mental health professionals, organizations, and policy-makers responsible for delivering services to clients;
4. To direct, conduct, disseminate and effectively use state-of-the-art basic and applied research in the field of psychology in a manner that will advance health knowledge and health care to the benefit of individuals and society;
5. To educate students and the public about clinical psychology and related fields, while reflecting the values of evidence-based practice, caring and social responsibility, and respect for and sensitivity to cultural diversity;
6. To educate, supervise, mentor and nurture psychologists-in-training and to model the values and practices of effective and ethical psychologists;
7. To adopt a balance of leadership and collaboration in working with colleagues in psychology and other mental health fields; and,
8. To participate in continuing education, personal-professional self-reflection, and careful observation of our constantly changing context in order to ensure effective and ethical practice throughout one's professional career.

The program prepares graduate students for clinical practice, academic, and/or research careers.

General program description

To meet these high standards and goals, all of our students are trained in the social, developmental, biological and cognitive bases of human behaviour, psychological assessment, diagnosis, intervention and prevention, psychopathology, ethics and professional issues, cultural diversity, research methods and evaluation, supervision and consultation. Students combine their training in these broad areas of Clinical Psychology with an emphasis in (1) neuropsychology or (2) lifespan psychology. Applicants should indicate that they wish to apply to either the neuropsychology emphasis or the lifespan psychology emphasis of our Graduate Program in Clinical Psychology.

Clinical Psychology: Lifespan Emphasis

The Lifespan Psychology Emphasis focuses on psychological adjustement across the lifespan, evaluating cognitive, emotional, and social functioning during childhood, adolescence, adulthood, and aging. Both normal and abnormal developmental processes and transitions are considered. Current clinically related research topics include (a) work and family influences on psychological adjustment; (b) influences of childhood trauma on later adjustment and coping; (c) cultural identity formation and acculturation; (d) child, adolescent and young adult adjustment, health opportunities, risk and psychopathology; (e) relationship functioning and couples therapies; (f) addiction and substance misuse; (g) separation, divorce, remarriage and other family stresses including immigration and disability of a child; (h) cognitive and affective changes in later life; and (i) challenges of care giving across the lifespan.

Clinical Psychology: Neuropsychology Emphasis

The Neuropsychology Emphasis focuses on brain organization for cognitive, behavioural and emotional functioning, and the impact of brain dysfunction on these aspects of functioning. Graduate students learn how normal and abnormal behaviour and cognition depend on underlying normal and pathological neural systems. A major goal is to train students to provide effective assessment, management and rehabilitation of cognitive, memory, sensorimotor, attention, executive, social, emotional, and other functions for clients with neurological disorders and traumatic brain injuries. Current clinically-related research topics include (a) dementia; (b) stroke; (c) epilepsy; (d) traumatic brain injury and cognitive rehabilitation; (e) effects of alcohol and other substances on brain development and functioning, including FASD; (f) ADHD, schizophrenia, OCD, depression and other major mental disorders in pediatric, adolescent, adult, and older adults; (g) driving and the assessment of cognitive competency; (h) cognitive and affective changes in later life and their neuropsychological underpinnings; and (i) the impact of traumatic brain injury on affected individual, spouses and other family members.

Regardless of the emphasis chosen, all of our students benefit from the strong developmental and neuropsychological perspectives that are a longstanding and rich scholarly tradition at the University of Victoria.

Faculty

Core clinical faculty

Core clinical faculty

• Catherine Costigan, Ph.D., Associate Professor & Acting Director of Clinical Training
• Marion Ehrenberg, Ph.D., Associate Professor
• Mauricio Garcia-Barrera, Ph.D., Assistant Professor
• Kimberly A. Kerns, Ph.D., Associate Professor
• Lara K. Robinson, Ph.D., Clinic Coordinator
• Marsha Runtz, Ph.D., Associate Professor
• Holly Tuokko, Ph.D., Professor
• Erica Woodin, Ph.D., Assistant Professor
• Brad Hale, Ph.D., Associate Professor
• Colette Smart, Ph.D. Assistant Professor

All members of the core clinical faculty (above) are eligible for registration as psychologists in British Columbia. Complementary departmental faculty, particularly those in the specializations of Lifespan Development, Cognition and Brain Sciences, and Experimental Neuropsychology, may act as research supervisors to students in the clinical program. These faculty members are currently co-supervising clinical graduate students, teaching graduate seminars, or otherwise contributing to the education of our clinical psychology graduate students. Please check with complementary faculty before listing them as possible graduate supervisors. Applicants who are admitted to the Graduate Program in Clinical Psychology with a research supervisor who is not a core clinical faculty member will be assigned a Clinical Program Advisor (CPA) who is a core clinical faculty member. This CPA will be available to guide the student in matters pertaining to clinical psychology program requirements.

Complementary faculty

Complementary faculty

• Daniel Bub, Ph.D., Professor
• Scott Hofer, Ph.D., Professor
• Andrea Piccinin, Ph.D., Associate Professor
• Fred Grouzet, Ph.D., Assistant Professor
• Clay Holroyd, Ph.D., Assistant Professor
• David Hultsch, Ph.D., Lansdowne Professor
• Michael Hunter, Ph.D., Associate Professor
• Bonnie Leadbeater, Ph.D., Professor
• Stephen Lindsay, Ph.D., Professor
• Stuart MacDonald, Ph.D., Assistant Professor
• Catherine A. Mateer, Ph.D., ABPP/CN, Professor
• Ulrich Mueller, Ph.D., Assistant Professor
• Ron Skelton, Ph.D., Associate Professor
• Tim Stockwell, Ph.D., Professor
• Jim Tanaka, Ph.D., Associate Professor

Facilities

Resources available for training and research...

The Department of Psychology has a clinic on campus that provides assessment and intervention experiences with children, adolescents, adults, and older adults. In addition, practicum experience is available at (1) the Victoria General Hospital, with pediatric services and a Traumatic Brain Injury program for adults; (2) the Queen Alexandra Centre for Children's Health; (3) the Psychology Department of the Royal Jubilee Hospital that provides facilities for adult psychiatric care; (4) three Community Mental Health Centres that provide a broad range of services, including an outreach team serving older adults ; and (5) Forensic Psychiatric Services, offering psychological assessment and treatment services to young and adult offenders. Practicum training may also be arranged in Vancouver and other locales.

Requirements

The Admissions Committee will review applications based on (a) background, interests, research and volunteer experience; (b) competitiveness of transcripts; (c) Graduate Record Examination scores (the verbal, quantitative & analytic sections of the General test are required; Psychology GRE score may also be submitted but is not mandatory); (d) a personal statement of field of interest; (e) a personal interview; and (f) match with individual faculty. Trainee selection is competitive. Six to eight students are selected each year from more than 100 applicants. Students may enter at either the Masters or Doctoral level, although preference is given to Masters level applicants. Advancement from the Masters to the Ph.D. program is not competitive, but is dependent on demonstrating appropriate academic, research, and clinical progress. In addition to substantial coursework, successful completion of the program requires 1200 hours of supervised practicum experience, successful completion of the candidacy examinations, successful completion of a master's thesis and doctoral dissertation, and a year-long, full-term clinical internship or residency.

Selecting Undergraduate Coursework to Prepare for Graduate Training in Clinical Psychology

Psychology undergraduate courses in areas such as Adult and Children's Mental Health, Neuropsychology, and Introduction to Clinical Psychology may be helpful to you in deciding whether graduate training in clinical psychology is really for you and also to prepare you for more in-depth graduate training in those areas. These clinical psychology focused undergraduate courses, however, must be balanced with a broad background in the scientific foundations of general psychology. Most APA- and CPA-accredited graduate programs in Clinical Psychology require graduate coursework -- or sometimes allow graduate equivalency based on excellent grades in upper level undergraduate courses — in the following FOUR areas. For each of these four areas, we have listed EXAMPLES of 3rd or 4th year undergraduate coursework that might prepare you for this graduate course work or possibly be counted as equivalents.

1. Biological Bases of Behaviour (e.g., Biological Psychology, Physiological Psychology, Neuropsychology)
2. Cognitive Bases of Behaviour (e.g., Learning, Memory, Cognition)
3. Social Bases of Behaviour (e.g., Social Psychology, Group Processes)
4. Individual Differences (e.g., Abnormal Psychology, Developmental Psychopathology)

These examples are intended to assist you in preparing for graduate training in clinical psychology. However, we are not in a position to assess individual applicants' undergraduate coverage of these four general psychology areas prior to admission.

Questions

If you have questions about the program, or would like more information, please contact Karen Kienapple in the Psychology Department, Dr. Catherine Costigan, Acting Director of Clinical Training, or contact directly one of the core clinical faculty with whom you are interested in working. Other sources of information include:

• University of Victoria - homepage
• Graduate Admissions
• Psychology Course Offerings

Pgm. Statistics

Student Admissions, Outcomes and Other Data

We welcome promising students from all over the world as applicants to our Graduate Program in Clinical Psychology.  The University of Victoria offers an inclusive and diverse environment that welcomes individuals of diverse cultural and individual backgrounds.  Our Graduate Program in Clinical Psychology is designed as a 5-6 year curriculum, with 2 years at the M.Sc. level and 3-4 years at the Ph.D. level, that covers coursework and experience in research methods and statistics, psychopathology and mental health, ethics and professional issues, psychological assessment and interventions, programme evaluation and preventative methods.  As our Clinical Psychology program offers a specialization in either Lifespan Psychology or Neuropsychology, completion of the Ph.D. typically takes an additional 1-year of training in comparison with graduate programs in clinical psychology without specialty or emphasis areas.  All Ph.D. students are required to complete a one-year full-time residency/internship at an APA- or CPA-accredited site.  Although our graduates have strongly endorsed the rich training experience our program offers, we recognize the economic, personal, and family factors associated with lengthy training and have recently streamlined and innovated the program to maintain quality but shorten the duration.  The first three years in which these changes have been instituted are showing promising improvements that will be reflected in shorter times to Ph.D. for current and future students.

The following two tables describe the numbers of applications during each of the last 7 application cycles, as well as average academic characteristics of students accepted into our Graduate Program in Clinical Psychology within the same time frame.

Table 1:  Applicant Data

	2005	2006	2007	2008	2009	2010	2011
Number of Applicants	101	108	101	114	112	123	140
Number Accepted	7	9	8	11	10	14	12
Size of In-coming Class	3	3	4	7	7	8	8
Students Receiving Financial Aid	3	3	4	7	7	8	8

Table 2:  GPA and GRE Scores of Students Admitted

	2005	2006	2007	2008	2009	2010	2011
Admitted Students Average GPA/ 4	3.67	3.72	3.45	3.57	3.61	3.69	3.55
GRE Verbal Mean	577	547	573	655	529	620	581
GRE Verbal Median	575	550	590	675	530	610	565
GRE Quantita- tive Mean	653	697	600	630	6.37	698	697
GRE Quantita- tive Median	640	700	630	650	6.25	690	700

As detailed above, all of our students are required to complete a one-year, full-time residency or internship at an APA- or CPA-accredited hospital, mental health setting, or other clinical psychology service and research site.  As is demonstrated in Table 3, our students are highly successful in securing highly regarded and preferred internships/residencies North America wide.  During the past 7 years, only one student did not secure an internship/residency, but this student wisely decided to engage in additional training and secure their top-ranking accredited internship training experience the following year.

Table 3: Applicants for Clinical Psychology Internships/Residencies (by year of internship start)

	2005	2006	2007	2008	2009	2010	2011
Total # Applicants	7	3	3	8	5	4	3
Number(%) Obtained Internship	7(100%)	3(100%)	2(66%)	8(100%)	5(100%)	4(100%)	3(100%)
CPA/APA Accredited Internship	7(100%)	3(100%)	2(66%)	8(100%)	5(100%)	4(100%)	3(100%)
Paid Internship	7(100%)	3(100%)	2(66%)	8(100%)	5(100%)	4(100%)	3(100%)

As mentioned, the specialty emphases of our Graduate Program in Clinical Psychology in Neuropsychology and in Lifespan Psychology lengthen the duration to Ph.D. completion.  Other factors to which we are sensitive and try to accommodate as a response are family factors, including parental leaves and caregiving of ill family members, economic and health issues.  At the same time, we are currently working toward decreasing the duration of our Graduate Program in Clinical Psychology.

Table 4:  Graduation Outcomes

Students		2004-05	2005-06	2006-07	2007-08	2008-09	2009-10	2010-11
# Students Entered with B.Sc. or B.A.		0	2	3	5	3	4	4
# Students Entered with M.Sc. or M.A.		1	0	1	0	1	4	0
Years to Completion BA/BSc Entry	Mean Median			7.2 7.1	8.8 8.6	8.2 8.2	8.2 8.4	8.8 8.0
Years to Completion MA/MSc. Entry	Mean Median	8.3 8.3	9.8 9.8	7.4 7.4		8.2 8.2	6.5 6.6
Years to Completion All Students	Mean Median	8.3 8.3	9.8 9.8	7.3 7.3	8.8 8.6	8.2 8.2	7.4 7.4	8.8 8.0

We try to provide a supportive, inclusive and rich learning environment to all of our graduate students.  We recognize that developing interests, personal-familial issues, geographical location, and health are among the factors that can alter an individual’s career goals and opportunities to continue with his or her education.  As can be seen below, the loss of 3 students from our Ph.D. program over the past 7 years contributed to an attrition rate of 11%.  However, 2 of these 3 students were supported in following their interests by transferring to other graduate programs offered in our department.  As such, our attrition rate from the Ph.D. program in terms of non-continuation in any departmental graduate training options reflects one student and a revised attrition rate of 3.7%.  The student who left the department was clear that they were doing so for personal-familial reasons and not due to dissatisfaction with our Graduate Program in Clinical Psychology.  Twenty eight students matriculated with their Ph.D. degrees within the same 7-year time frame.  To complement the data presented above, of these 28 students, one student completed the Ph.D. in 5 years (4%), 3 students in 6 years (10%), 9 in 7 years (31%), and 16 in more than 7 years (55%).

Table 5:  Attrition & Transfer to Other Non-Clinical Psychology Graduate Programs 

Year of First Enrollment in Ph.D. Program in Clinical Psychology	Number of Students Enrolled	Number and Percentage Who Graduated with Doctorate	Number and Percentage of Students Still Enrolled in Program	Number and Percentage of Students No Longer Enrolled for Any Reason Other Than Graduation	Number and Percentage of Students Who Transferred to Other Ph.D. Programs in Psychology Department
2005	4	2(50%)	0	1(25%)	1(25%)
2006	4	2(50%)	2(50%)	0	0
2007	2	0	1(50%)	0	1(50%)
2008	3	0	3(100%)	0	0
2009	3	0	3(100%)	0	0
2010	6	0	6(100%)	0	0
2011	6	0	6(100%)	0	0

We appreciate that economic factors are a key component for talented students making decisions about where to attend graduate school.  The table below summarizes annual costs for attending our Graduate Program in Clinical Psychology.

Table 6:  Annual Programme Costs 20010-11

Tuition	$5,049*
Athletic-Recreation Fee	$219
Grad Student's Society	$163
Universal Transit Pass (U-Pass)	$208
Other: Criminal Record Check** Course Books Optional Graduate Student Health Plan Option Graduate Student Dental Plan	$15-$50 $500-800 $310 $195
Total Program Costs	$6,154-$6,929

*Please verify current tuition fees and international student fees at the Faculty of Graduate Studies website at http://web.uvic.ca/gradstudies/ .
**Please note you are required to present a Criminal Record Check from your home jurisdiction upon entry into the program.  This is due to legal requirements for individuals working with children and other vulnerable persons.

We strive to provide and assist students in securing adequate funding to support their training in our Graduate Program.  The average annual financial support to last year’s incoming 2001--11 class (8 students) was $20,999.  This funding package was comprised of U Vic Fellowship and President Research Awards and external awards (CIHR, NSERC and SSHRC), and Research Assistantships ($300-$5,000 per year).  Each year a certain amount of Teaching Assistantship funding is guaranteed to accepted graduate students (last year at the amount of $4,600 for the first year), but frequently graduate students complete fewer TA hours when they are adequately funded by scholarships, awards and research assistantships.  For example, in 20010-11 first year clinical psychology graduate students reported a range of $0-$5,200 funds derived from their teaching assistantship earnings.