Clinical Science

Area Chair: Ashley Gearhardt, Professor of Psychology
Director of Clinical Training: Sarah Jonovich, Lecturer IV

Since 1948, the Clinical Psychology Doctoral Program at the University of Michigan has been integral to the mission of the Psychology Department and the University. The program in Clinical Science is committed to training clinical psychologists who will pursue careers that advance translational knowledge for the promotion of well-being and the reduction of mental illness. The program views clinical practice as an applied science and aspires to contribute to the foundation of evidence that guides ethical and effective psychological services. These commitments are expressed through four principles. First, our program emphasizes training in the conduct of empirical research concerning the etiology, assessment or intervention for individuals who suffer from psychological distress and psychopathology. Second, our program promotes training in ethical, effective, evidence-based clinical practice.  Third, our program trains students to be excellent teachers.   Finally, our program insists that culture, context, and other domains of individual and group-based distinctiveness always merit full consideration in clinical science research, practice and training.

In expressing these principles, our program offers rigorous training in interdisciplinary research methods, teaching, statistics, clinical and research ethics, and evidence-based assessment, prevention, and treatment, developmental psychopathology, cognitive and affective neuroscience, resilience and coping, cultural and contextual analysis. Our program recognizes clinical training as a core component in the development of clinical scientists and we believe that clinical practice and service facilitates and informs clinical science. Thus, we strive to provide excellent clinical training that integrates science and practice through assessment, case conceptualization, prevention, and intervention.

Strengths and research areas of our program faculty currently include cognitive and affective neuroscience, behavioral endocrinology, developmental psychopathology, risk and resilience, violence and trauma, and cross-cultural investigations of clinical problems and these approaches span traditional diagnoses including addictive, affective, psychotic, anxiety, traumatic, and disruptive behavior. We encourage the multi-level integration of biological, psychological, familial, community, and developmental approaches. Several faculty members’ interests overlap with more than one of these domains. As a result, our program recognizes these intellectual priorities as one means for organizing our collective activities (and, indeed, for determining how best to allocate our attention and resources toward our stated training goals). Given the interdisciplinary nature of research in the clinical area, our intellectual priorities also fuel ready and enduring collaborations with other faculty and researchers both in the Department of Psychology and beyond. Indeed, the University of Michigan is justifiably proud of, and nationally recognized for, its commitment to inter- and cross-disciplinary collaborations. For our program faculty, this includes intersections with other departmental areas (e.g., cognitive psychology, developmental psychology), other departments (e.g., Psychiatry) and other campus institutes and centers (e.g., the Depression Center, Michigan Institute for Clinical and Health Research, Institute for Social Research). Despite these centrifugal pulls, what binds our activities together is our shared commitment—distinctive in the University—to studying, preventing, and treating psychopathology and producing highly trained clinical scientists who will effectively apply a variety of research methods to pressing problems in the assessment and treatment of psychopathology.

Program Mission

The program's broad mission is to advance scientific research in all aspects of clinical psychology including education, assessment, treatment, prevention and understanding of psychopathology.  

Program Goals

To facilitate rigorous, significant, culturally and contextually sensitive, clinically relevant psychological research.

To train graduate students to demonstrate excellent clinical skill in the prevention, assessment, evaluation and treatment of psychological distress and psychopathology.

To train graduate students in the development of effective teaching skills that will help their students to think scientifically about human behavior, to critically assess concepts and evidence, and to engage in clinical science research.

To promote deep understanding of ethical principles that guide research, teaching and clinical practice. Have the ability to put ethical principles into practice in all three performance settings (Research, Teaching and Practice).

For additional information, please contact the Chair of the clinical science program, Dr. Ashley Gearhardt at agearhar@umich.edu or the Director and Coordinator of Clinical Training, Dr. Sarah Jonovich at jonovich@umich.edu .  

The Clinical Science program is accredited by the:

Psychological Clinical Science Accreditation System (PCSAS)
1800 Massachusetts Avenue NW, Suite 402
Washington, DC 20036-1218
Telephone: 301-455-8046
Website: https://www.pcsas.org/

American Psychological Association
Commission on Accreditation
750 First Street, NE
Washington, DC 20002-4242
Phone: 202-336-5979
APA Commission on Accreditation

PSYCHOLOGY PROFESSIONAL LICENSURE:

The University of Michigan Clinical Science Ph.D. Program, to the best of its ability, determined that the curriculum offered by our program meets – or does not meet – the educational requirements for licensure or certification to practice psychology in each of the states. Please refer to the link below to identify the states where educational prerequisites for licensure are satisfied, where they are not satisfied, and where no such determination has been made by the program. 

UM Psychology Licensure Disclosure by State

For states in which the Program’s educational offerings do not meet a specific state’s requirements for licensure or certification, students may be required to obtain alternate, different, or more courses, or more experiential or clinical hours required. These findings are accurate, to the best of our ability, as of June 19, 2024. 

Suinn Achievement Award

The Department of Psychology's Program in Clinical Psychology received the Suinn Achievement Award (2005) from the American Psychological Association (APA). The award is given to university psychology departments that have demonstrated excellence in the recruitment, retention and graduation of ethnic minority students. The award, named after Richard M. Suinn—past president of the APA—was presented in August at the APA's annual meeting in Washington, DC.