SMU Psychology Clinic

The SMU Psychology Clinic is a non-profit training clinic housed within SMU’s Department of Psychology. The mission of the Clinic is threefold: 1) to provide training in the competent and ethical practice of clinical psychology; 2) in service to the community, to provide high-quality, affordable psychological services to the Dallas-Fort Worth area; and, 3) to support clinical research and dissemination of evidence-based practice.

This Clinic works in part with the Clinical Training associated with the Ph.D. program. Clinical training is closely integrated with research training. Coursework addresses theory and research on clinical disorders/problems, evidence-based assessment and intervention techniques, and methods for evaluating the effectiveness of clinical practice. Internal and external clinical practicum experiences provide students with training and supervision in the application of evidence-based clinical practice and function to expose students to a breadth of client/patient populations.

Clinical training also takes place in many faculty research labs through research on clinical phenomena and evaluation of the effectiveness of specific assessment and treatment techniques. Thus, students often receive training in clinical practice (e.g., interviewing skills, training in the delivery of specific assessment or intervention techniques) as part of their involvement in faculty research as well as in their formal training experiences.

Research Training

Research training is provided through coursework, active membership in the faculty advisor’s research lab, and completion of student-directed research. Courses covering research and quantitative methods and the foundations of clinical, developmental, social, biological, and cognitive/affective psychology are designed to familiarize students with the theoretical and research literature in these areas as well as the methods used to study psychological phenomena.

As a graduate student, you will work closely with one or more of our core faculty and will have the opportunity to be involved in important, innovative research on a variety of topics and to conduct your own, independent research under the supervision of an expert in your area of interest. Faculty research covers a variety of topics, including family violence, anxiety disorders, psychophysiology, psychological assessment, health behaviors, intimate relationships, couple therapy, schizophrenia, memory function, child depression, personality, and parenting. We also have two newly established foci in Child and Family Psychology and Health Psychology that provide additional research and clinical training to interested students.

All students are expected to be full members of their advisor’s research lab, to contribute to the design, completion, and presentation of research studies at professional conferences and in professional journals, and to attend department colloquia.

Finally, students complete at least two student-directed research projects in the form of their thesis and dissertation as well as a comprehensive review of the literature on a topic in their field of interest (the third year review paper). These activities are designed to expose students to psychological research and theory, as well as research methods in a variety of settings, and to train students to independently generate scientific knowledge.