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Clinical Placement and Training

The Clinical Training Office provides a valuable link to community resources and professional activities for students. The Office assists students during the process of acquiring their supervised clinical experience in qualified training agencies throughout Southern California and has approved approximately 200 training agencies in the Los Angeles area, San Fernando Valley, San Gabriel Valley, Ventura County, Orange County, Antelope Valley, and San Bernadino County.


MASTER OF ARTS IN PSYCHOLOGY

The Clinical Training Office keeps students abreast of state laws, regulations and procedures for Marriage and Family Therapy licensure in the state of California.

The Clinical Training Office is open Tuesday through Saturday from 9:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. For more information, contact (818) 386-5671 or email the Clinical Training Office Coordinator (M.A.) Lisa Wolfe at lwolfe@pgi.edu.


Master of Arts in Psychology with an emphasis in Marriage and Family Therapy

The Master of Arts degree in Psychology includes the application of theory through direct clinical experience. Students have the opportunity to provide direct clinical service to clients/families in the classroom through Case Conference courses and in community agencies approved by the school. This hands-on training augments and enhances the academic knowledge gained in the classroom.

The training received at an approved agency is often referred to as a clinical placement, field placement, or traineeship. It is through these designated training agencies that students obtain their hours of clinical experience. The approved community agencies include counseling centers, schools, medical facilities, religious settings and social services agencies.

Students seeking the California license as a Marriage and Family Therapist (MFT) are required to complete 150 hours of practicum experience (part of the academic requirement) in an approved training agency prior to degree completion. The practicum experience, part of the student’s clinical training, allows students to provide counseling services to clients under the supervision of licensed professionals. Phillips approved training sites include counseling centers, schools, mental health programs and hospitals. Students may begin their practicum experience after they have completed their first semester of coursework and have been designated by Phillips faculty as trainees who are ready to begin clinical work. Students seeking licensure as Marriage and Family Therapists must be in a clinical placement by the beginning of the third semester.


Master of Arts in Psychology with an emphasis in Marriage and Family Therapy/Art Therapy

Phillips students enrolled in this program receive assistance with their field placement through the Office of Clinical Training and the Art Therapy department. The practicum experience, part of the students’ clinical training, allows students to provide counseling services to clients under the supervision of licensed professionals. Phillips approved training sites include counseling centers, schools, mental health programs, and hospitals.

Students seeking California licensure as a Marriage and Family Therapist (MFT) are required to complete 150 hours of direct client contact (part of the academic requirement) in an approved training agency prior to degree completion. Students seeking Art Therapy Registration (ATR) must complete an additional 150 hours of direct client contact. All Art Therapy students are expected to complete a total of 700 hours of practicum experience prior to graduation. A total of 100 hours of experience are accrued during 519A&B (Case Conference) with 50 of those hours being direct client contact hours. These 100 hours accrued in Case Conference are only ATR hours and do not satisfy the California requirements for licensure as a Marriage and Family Therapist. After completion of both Case Conference courses, 600 hours are accrued through practicum experience. Of these hours, 300 are direct client hours and 300 are general hours of experience. In order to meet American Art Therapy Association (AATA) and Art Therapy Credential Board (ATCB) clinical placement requirements, all students are required to be in a practicum traineeship for three semesters (one semester may be a summer semester). The Clinical Training Office and the Art Therapy department provide information and assistance to students applying for practicum traineeships and must approve all placements. Multi-major students, part-time students, and/or students who are not approved for traineeship status in the second semester should expect to enroll in a minimum of two additional units and an additional semester in order to meet this requirement.

Art Therapy Program compliance requires that students complete twelve (12) units of study prior to approval for traineeship status. These must include PSY519A Case Conference; Group Dynamics Lab and PSY502A Family Therapy Systemic Approaches. In addition, students must have completed or be concurrently enrolled in PSY561 History and Literature of Art Therapy; PSY562 Studio Art Therapy Principles and PSY569 Art Therapy Dynamics and Applications. While Phillips makes every effort to inform students about and prepare them for each step of the state licensing process, it is the students’ responsibility to ensure fulfillment of all qualifications for the California license as a Marriage and Family Therapist or as a licensed Psychologist. Students in the MFT/AT program are responsible for ensuring fulfillment of all the qualifications for national registration as outlined by the ATCB.


CLINICAL PSYCHOLOGY DOCTORAL PROGRAM

The Clinical Psychology Doctoral Program Clinical Training Office provides assistance to students in search of appropriate doctoral-level practicum and internship training opportunities. The Clinical Training Office is responsible for approving training programs that offer these opportunities: conducting site visits; acting as a liaison between Phillips and the training programs; evaluating students for practicum and internship readiness; and providing clinical training advisement to students. The Clinical Training Office also keeps students abreast of state laws, regulations and procedures for psychology licensure in the state of California and can work individually with students seeking training (and potential licensure) in other states. The Clinical Training Office maintains detailed information about all approved sites that students may access when on campus. The approved training programs can be found in (but are not limited to) the following areas: San Fernando, San Gabriel and Antelope Valleys and Los Angeles, Ventura, Orange, Kern, San Bernardino, and Riverside Counties.

Clinical Training Office staff (Director of Clinical Training/Internship Coordinator, Practicum Coordinator, and Clinical Training Office Coordinator) is available to students Tuesday through Friday from 9:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. For more information, contact (818) 386-5603 or email the Clinical Training Office Administrative Assistant, Camille Andres, at candres@pgi.edu.


Practicum

Doctoral students are required to acquire clinical experience, known as doctoral practicum-level training, prior to beginning their pre-doctoral internship. This practicum-level training requirement is met by completion of a minimum of two separate and approved practicum rotations.  A complete practicum rotation lasts for a mini­mum of 9 months and a maximum of 12 months and ranges in weekly hour commit­ment between 12–15 hours per week. Students who successfully complete both of the minimum practicum rotations accrue approximately 1,200 hours of practicum-level supervised professional experience before advancing to internship. For those seeking competitive full-time internships, completion of a third practicum rotation is strongly recommended in order to increase their chances of procuring these internships.

Internship

Doctoral students are required to complete a minimum of 1500 hours of supervised clinical experience at the pre-doctoral internship level. This experience may be completed as a one-year, full-time internship (during the last year) or two, half-time internships distributed over the last two years of the program. Internship training sites must either have accreditation by the American Psychological Association (APA) or be a member of or meet membership criteria for the Association of Pre- and Post-Doctoral Internship Centers (APPIC) or the California Psychology Internship Council (CAPIC). In order to apply for internships, students must first be deemed “internship-ready” by the Clinical Training Office.
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