Students who enter the program with bachelor’s degrees complete a three-semester field placement beginning in the fall of Year II. All students complete a practicum that focuses on psychological assessment in Year III and a practicum that focuses on psychotherapy in Year IV. Students have the option of completing a two-semester advanced psychological assessment or psychotherapy-focused practicum in Year V. Students complete a full-time pre-doctoral internship in Year VI. Students are encouraged to obtain APA-approved internship sites. All students are required to participate in the APPIC match unless excused by the Director of Clinical Training. Qualified students may be eligible for placement through the CHC Internship Consortium, which is an APPIC-member pre-doctoral internship placement.
Practicums
In Fall 2011, the Psy.D. Program opened the Chestnut Hill College Psychological Services Center (CHC PSC), a training clinic for Psy.D. students to obtain supervised experience providing psychological assessments. The supervision is provided by CHC faculty and qualified professionals from the community. Some students will be able to complete part of their practicum requirements at the PSC.
CHC students compete with students from other graduate programs for field placements; therefore, timely completion of the field placement application process is imperative to assure an appropriate and compatible placement.
The Director of Clinical Training provides information and guidance to students in selecting appropriate sites for clinical experiences and practica. The Director of Internship Training provides information and guidance to students in selecting appropriate sites for the pre-doctoral internship. However, students must apply to and be selected by the sites that they choose.
Doctoral Internship
The doctoral internship is an intensive, supervised, 2000-hour work experience completed during the final phase of the doctoral program. The goal of the internship is to help the student develop, practice, and integrate clinical skills. Students are expected to pursue a one-year, full-time internship. Internships generally begin between July and September.
Students are expected to apply for APA-accredited and APPIC-member internships listed in the directory found at www.appic.org. Extensive information will be provided by the Director of Internship Training at information sessions held in Year IV and Year V. The APPIC application and further information about APA-accredited and APPIC-member sites can be found on the APPIC website and in the Internship Manual.
Students must pass the Comprehensive Examination and the Clinical Competency Examination before they will be permitted to begin an internship. Students are strongly encouraged to complete their dissertations prior to internship. No student may apply for internship unless the Dissertation Proposal has been completed and approved by all members of the committee by July 10th of the year in which the student intends to submit internship applications.
CHC Internship Consortium
The Chestnut Hill College (CHC) Internship Consortium, administered by the Chestnut Hill College School of Graduate Study’s Department of Professional Psychology, provides paid APA-Accredited doctoral internships in clinical psychology to Psy.D. students. The Consortium offers 2,000-hour minimum one-year internships, beginning July 1st and ending June 30th. Students in the Psy.D.program at Chestnut Hill College are given preference in selection for internship positions but students from other programs may apply after all CHC students have been placed.
The Consortium is a cooperative training program that includes clinical service agencies across the greater Philadelphia region. Each agency is independent and maintains sole clinical and financial responsibility and liability for its clients and interns. The Consortium provides oversight of the integration and integrity of the educational and training aspects of the interns’ experiences, as well as the didactic component of interns’ training. (Didactic training is usually held at the College, for one day each week.) On-site supervision of clinical work is provided by qualified clinical site supervisors at each member site of the Consortium.
The Consortium was developed in response to the needs of many CHC graduate psychology students who require a local internship and are faced with a shortage of appropriate training sites in the Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Delaware regions.