Clinical Psychology

Diversity & Multicultural Psychology

Purpose

The Diversity Concentration is designed to meet the educational and training needs of students interested in racial/ethnic issues, culture, gender, sexuality, international psychology, and disabilities. Defining diversity in the broad sense will prepare students for service provision to diverse populations in multiple settings. The concentration will facilitate students’ understanding of relevant aspects of human services and healthcare delivery to people of color, immigrants,
persons with varying sexual orientation, gender, and disabilities, and other under-served populations. Many of the courses for the Diversity Concentration will not only help meet the job demands of the current psychology market, but also foster leadership development in relevant diversity issues within clinical psychology..

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Consideration

• Graduates must have sufficient knowledge about current theories and practice that relate to various diverse populations.
• Graduates must undergo a process of continued awareness of their own cultural context while respecting differences.
• Graduates must become knowledgeable about social and political systems (e.g., discrimination and oppression) and the impact this has on various diverse populations.
• Graduates must recognize that each person has multifaceted identities, and appreciate how these identities interact in dynamic and often complex ways with personality, experience, and context.
• Graduates must demonstrate an adequate floor of cultural competence in their roles as clinicians, as well as an understanding of the role of cultural competence outreach, training, supervision, and teaching.

Course Requirements

The Diversity Concentration requires the satisfactory completion of the Psy.D in Clinical
Psychology program semester credit hour, Professionalization Group, Comprehensive Examination, five Clinical Competency tasks, and internship requirements listed under “Program Requirements” earlier in this section. Students in this concentration are required to fill the following academic requirements:

General Elective Requirement — Students Are Required to Take the Following:

• PP8025 Diversity Psychology: Past, Present, and Future   - 3 credits
• General Elective Requirement - 3 credits

Diversity Elective Requirement — Students Are Required toTake the Following

• PP8116 Psychology of Gay/Lesbian/Bisexual Development - 3 credits
• PP8717 Psychology of Gender - 3 credits
  
• Diversity Elective Requirement - 3 credits

Advanced Intervention Requirement — Students Are Required to Take the Following:

• PP8950 Advanced Interventions with Diverse Populations - 3 credits
• Advanced Intervention Requirement  - 3 credits

Clinical Training:

Practicum and Practicum Seminar

An essential aspect of professional education and development is supervised practice in clinical skills. Students are required to engage in two year-long experiences known as practicum. Training sites may be in a variety of settings and may include clinics, counseling centers or mental health facilities. Regardless of practicum site, students are encouraged to seek out placement sites where there are sufficient opportunities to treat people of diverse backgrounds and receive culturally responsive supervision. Diversity concentration students are strongly encouraged to enroll in a Psychotherapy Seminar led by a core faculty member teaching within the concentration.

Internships

Students enrolled in the Forensic concentration are encouraged to intern at a site with a primary forensic focus in terms of population and assessment techniques.

Clinical Research Project

Clinical Research Project topic must be relevant to the Concentration, and must be approved by the CRP chair in collaboration with Concentration Coordinator. CRP chair should be a faculty member from Concentration whenever possible; if not feasible, at least one of the readers should be of these faculty members

Core Faculty	Adjunct Faculty
Rahul Sharma, Psy.D

***PLEASE CONTACT CONCENTRATION COORDINATOR at rasharma@argosy.edu or 312-777-7707 with questions.