Psychology

The SIUE Clinical Psychology Graduate Program (formerly Clinical Adult Psychology) is intended for students interested in either of two outcomes:  preparing for doctoral-level training in clinical psychology and related fields, or employment in the mental health field.  Graduates of our program earn the M.A. degree, and typically spend 5 semesters (two academic years and the summer between them) in the program.  The program includes rigorous coursework in such areas as psychotherapy, psychological assessment, psychopathology, biopsychology, and research and statistics.  The program also requires multiple semesters of practicum, completed through our network of external practicum sites, and an empirical master’s thesis, which the student designs and conducts under the supervision of a thesis committee. 

The program has two purposes: to prepare students for doctoral level training in clinical psychology or related fields, and to prepare students for employment in the mental health field.

Note that the clinical psychology program focuses primarily on research and clinical work involving adult clients.  For applicants interested in research or clinical work with children and adolescents, please consider our department’s separate Clinical Child and School Psychology graduate program.

Our program is designed for completion in five consecutive semesters of full-time attendance (fall-spring-summer-fall-spring). The majority of our students complete the program in that time period.

As prerequisites, applicants in our program must have earned a C or better in the following undergraduate courses before they begin our program:

• Introductory Psychology
• Research Methods/Experimental Psychology
• Psychological Statistics
• Abnormal Psychology/Psychopathology
• Physiological Psychology/Biological Psychology (neither Sensation & Perception nor Cognitive Psychology meets this prerequisite)

Additional undergraduate courses that are not required but may be beneficial include Clinical Psychology, Tests & Measures, and Theories of Personality.

The GRE exam (Verbal, Quantitative, and Writing) is a required element of the application.

Curriculum may vary slightly, but here’s a typical sequence of courses:

Fall of Year 1

PSYC 520—Research Design and Inference I

PSYC 531—Advanced Psychopathology

PSYC 537b—Counseling and Psychotherapy of the Individual Adult

PSYC 541b—Cognitive Assessment of the Adult

Spring of Year 1

PSYC 521—Research Design and Inference II

PSYC 535—Cognitive-Behavioral Psychotherapy

PSYC 538—Group Therapy

PSYC 543b—Personality Assessment of the Adult

Summer between Year 1 and Year 2

PSYC 507—Multicultural Counseling and Psychotherapy

PSYC 550—Ethics and Professional Issues in Psychology

PSYC 523—Practicum in Clinical Psychology

Optional—elective(s)

Fall of Year 2

PSYC 523—Practicum in Clinical Psychology

PSYC 599—Thesis

Optional—elective(s)

Spring of Year 2

PSYC 514—Advanced Biopsychology

PSYC 523—Practicum in Clinical Psychology

Optional—elective(s)

Our students complete their practica within a network of external practicum sites in the southern Illinois and St. Louis areas. These sites have been visited and approved by our practicum coordinator, and typically they have supervised many students from our program in the past. The practicum sites span a wide clinical range, including psychiatric hospitals, general hospitals, college counseling centers, private practices, community mental health centers, specialty clinics and departments, and more. At these sites, our students perform a wide variety of clinical tasks, including individual psychotherapy, group psychotherapy, personality assessment, intellectual and neuropsychological assessment, and more. They also interact with a wide variety of professionals and gain first-hand experience in the functioning of real-world mental health facilities. Some variation in availability occurs from year to year, but in recent years, practicum sites have included:

• SIUE Counseling Services
• University of Missouri-St. Louis Counseling Services
• Saint Louis University School of Medicine, Dept. of Neurology & Psychiatry, Neuropsychology Division
• Safe Connections
• Metropolitan St. Louis Psychiatric Center
• The Center for Mindfulness and CBT
• St. Louis Forensic Treatment Center (North and South campuses)
• St. Louis Behavioral Medicine Institute
• Choices Counseling, Inc.

Students are encouraged to develop their own thesis topics. If students want to focus on a topic closely related to a faculty member’s research, we welcome that approach. If students want to focus on a topic that does not closely relate to a professor’s research (but, of course, is within the field of clinical psychology), our faculty will do our best to accommodate them. We cannot guarantee that a faculty member will be competent to supervise every thesis idea, but collectively, we have a wide range of expertise and a commitment to helping students pursue research that is personally meaningful rather than simply a rote task to complete. Over the years, we have supervised theses on a very wide range of topics including almost every topic that our students have developed. Each master’s thesis is supervised by a committee consisting of three professors, one of whom serves as chair. Thesis committees are not limited to members of the Clinical Psychology faculty; in fact, when necessary, students may seek thesis committee members who are outside of the Department of Psychology. (Please note, Dr. Pawlow will be retiring at the end of Fall 2025.)

Yes! Quite a few of our students’ master’s theses have been published in esteemed peer-reviewed journals (e.g., Journal of Clinical Psychology; Ethics & Behavior; Counselling and Psychotherapy Research; Journal of American College Health; American Journal of Psychiatric Rehabilitation; SN Comprehensive Clinical Medicine) or presented at national and regional conferences (e.g., American Psychological Association and Midwestern Psychological Association). Many of these accomplishments are celebrated on our program’s Facebook page.

We admit students on an annual basis, starting in the fall semester. Each new cohort typically includes about 10 students.

The number of applications we receive varies from year to year, but the number is always far more than the approximately 10 that we will ultimately include in our cohort. As a result, the admissions process is quite selective, with only a minority of applicants typically receiving admission offers. An applicant who simply meets the prerequisites and submits the required application materials is not guaranteed admission.

We do a comprehensive evaluation of every application we receive, in which we consider all elements of the application. Important factors include undergraduate grades, recommendation letters, personal statement, GRE scores, clinical experience, research experience, and overall fit between the applicant’s goals and our program. We typically invite our most competitive applicants for personal interviews shortly before making final admissions decisions.

Graduate assistantships are essentially part-time jobs within the university that provide tuition remission and a stipend for living costs. Over the last 20+ years, with rare exception, every student in our program who has applied for a graduate assistantship has obtained one. Typically, our graduate program has sufficient funding to offer assistantships to approximately one-third of the first-year students we enroll. Those assistantships are offered at the time of admission and involve work within the Department of Psychology. For the other approximately two-thirds of students entering our program, we offer guidance to other departments in the university who are looking to hire graduate assistants. Often, these departments lack a graduate student population of their own, but seek high-quality graduate assistants, which our program has been able to consistently supply over the years. Graduate assistantships carry the same tuition remission and stipend whether housed within or outside of the Department of Psychology. While we cannot guarantee that all students will receive a graduate assistantship, and availability may vary widely or suddenly as a result of budgetary changes at the university, the fact that almost every student who has applied for a graduate assistantship has obtained one over multiple decades makes us confident in our students’ chances.

No. At this time, the program is only available as a full-time, in-person program (although occasional courses may be offered in an online format).

Feel free to contact the director of the graduate program, Dr. Andy Pomerantz, at apomera@siue.edu. If you would like to speak directly to a current student or graduate, feel free to make that request to Dr. Pomerantz and he will be happy to connect you.