PLEASE NOTE:

As of December 13, 2010, the doctoral program in Counseling Psychology will no longer be accepting applications for admission or admitting new students, with closure of the program planned for the future.

 

Counseling Psychology Ph.D. Program

The APA-accredited Counseling Psychology Ph.D. Program prepares counseling psychologists for professional roles as academics, researchers, and practitioners. Our goal is that these psychologists will apply interventions in individual behavior and institutional settings with a focus on relational, multicultural, career, and psychosocial issues.

Goals and Objectives:

• To foster students' development of competence as scientists, researchers, and scholars, including their knowledge of the ways in which practice influences science.

• To foster students' development of competence as practitioners, including their knowledge of the ways in which science influences practice.

• To foster the development of counseling psychologists who demonstrate their multicultural sensitivity, awareness, knowledge, and competence in their training and professional work.

• To provide broad and general training in the field of psychology while also fostering students' professional development and identity as counseling psychologists.

Approach to Training

• The Counseling Psychology Program endorses the scientist-practitioner model of training. Psychological training is provided within a scientist-practitioner model with equal emphasis and value on both scholarly and clinical work as well as their integration.

• We strive to engender a multicultural perspective in our students. At Penn State, we do not merely recognize the diversity represented in our faculty, student, and clients, we actively affirm the richness of our cultures and we embrace the continual challenge of examining ourselves to determine how to more effectively serve a pluralistic society. Housed within the College of Education, we aspire to the following values espoused by the College: equity and social justice, diversity of ideas and cultures; individual and collective excellence, outstanding teaching and service; and scholarly research and professional collaboration.

Counseling Psychology Faculty

• Our faculty research interests are diverse and include:

• investigating the role of family emotion regulation and capacities for autonomy and intimacy in the health and functioning of family members

• the psychotherapy relationship
• affirmative counseling and psychotherapy with gay, lesbian, and bisexual clients
• integration of psychology and spirituality
• attachment in families and in counseling
• preventive interventions with families with infants and your children
• countertransference
• application of social cognitive careeer theory to research training
• responses to infant distress
• child maltreatment
• Relative to counseling and psychotherapy, our faculty is perhaps best described as utilizing a multiculturally infused and humanistic base, coupled with a research-oriented eclecticism that includes psychodynamic, feminist, client-centered, interpersonal, family systems, and other models.

Program Quality

• The Ph.D. program in Counseling Psychology has been accredited by the American Psychological Association since 1982 (Office of Program Consultation & Accreditation, 750 First Street, NE, Washington, DC 20002-4242; (202) 336-5979).

• Ranked 2nd in the country by the Chronicle of Higher Education in terms of faculty scholarly productivity.
• For over a decade, 100% of our students have successfully matched APA-approved, paid, pre-doctoral internship sites.

General Admissions Information

• Applicants to this doctoral program must possess a master’s degree in counseling or a related field.

• Individuals with disabilities and persons from racial, ethnic, sexual, or other minority groups are encouraged to apply.

• Applicants must submit application materials by December 15 of each year.

• Successful applicants will have completed the majority, though not necessarily all, of the following courses prior to admission to the doctoral program. Note that these courses are not required for admission but are relevant to preparation for our program.

• Theories of counseling/psychotherapy*
• Group counseling/psychotherapy
• Assessment/Testing
• Counselor skills training/pre-practicum

• Statistics/Research design*

• Individual counseling practicum*

• Human development

• Career counseling

• Multicultural counseling

*These courses are particularly important to preparation for the doctoral program.

We also encourage prospective students to take courses at the master’s level in the foundations of psychology (e.g., learning, social psychology, psychopathology).

In addition to a minimum of a 3.33 average in all graduate work, there are minimum undergraduate requirements of: a junior-senior GPA of at least 2.5, and 27 credits spread among at least three of the following areas: anthropology, economics, education, individual and family studies, political science, psychology, sociology, and physiology or anatomy with at least a 3.0 GP in those 27 credits. Applicants not meeting these undergraduate requirements, either in credits or average, may be admitted with deficiencies which will increase the program requirements for graduation. Applicants to the Ph.D. program are not required to have prior related employment; however, professional experiences will be evaluated favorably.