Program Overview

Graduate Program

The Graduate Program in Clinical Psychology is designed to train clinical scientists who will produce and apply scientific knowledge in understanding, assessing, preventing, and treating emotional and behavioral problems. All students are admitted to work toward the PhD degree. We do not offer a terminal Master's Degree, though all our students fulfill the requirements for and receive a Master of Arts degree in the course of working toward the PhD.

Program Structure

• Graduate students choose a research mentor who will oversee their progress in research training.
• Students may sample from a variety of research topics currently represented among the clinical faculty.
• Applicants are encouraged to specify members of the faculty whom they view as having interests most compatible with their own and in whose labs they would most like to work.
• In clinical training, students are exposed to a variety of theoretical orientations, including acceptance-based, behavioral, cognitive, couple, family, and mindfulness-based approaches.
• The program provides training in its own clinical/research facilities.
• There are approximately 42 faculty members and 94 graduate students in the Department of Psychology and Neuroscience.
• Students work closely with their faculty mentors and interact extensively with each other.
• Interdisciplinary study is encouraged and facilitated by several interdepartmental institutes: the Institute for Behavioral Genetics, the Institute of Behavioral Science, and the Institute of Cognitive Science.

Values Statement

The mission of the University of Colorado Boulder’s Clinical Psychology PhD program is to train clinical scientists who will produce and apply scientific knowledge in understanding, assessing, preventing, and treating emotional and behavioral problems. As a program, we strive to be a just, welcoming, and inclusive community. We have four primary goals towards which we are continually working that guide the overall structure of our program. These include:

1. Maintaining a curriculum of cutting-edge courses and clinical training experiences that cover a broad knowledge base of psychology, clinical psychology, interdisciplinary training, and multicultural awareness/perspectives.
2. Providing a training environment that values and fosters reproducible, representative, justice-oriented, and ethical conduct of research.
3. Training clinicians who can skillfully apply scientifically-based principles of assessment and intervention, including how to apply these principles in a culturally competent way that respects client characteristics and preferences.
4. Attending to diversity and inclusion in program policies and practices, which we believe is essential in addressing the above program goals to offer a cutting-edge curriculum, conduct responsible research, and train clinicians in conducting empirically supported assessment and intervention.

Commitment to Diversity

The program is committed to offering a training and mentorship model that emphasizes the support and well-being of students in the program, and to fostering diversity, including in the graduate student body. The Colorado Advantage Graduate Preview Weekend provides an opportunity for underrepresented students to preview the doctoral programs of Psychology and Neuroscience and other CU Boulder Science, Technology, Engineering and Math departments. McNair Scholars and Project 1000 applicants are eligible for application fee waivers. The University of Colorado Boulder is an affirmative action/equal opportunity institution. The department encourages applications from underrepresented students.