Prospective Graduate Students

The University of Massachusetts Amherst (UMass) Clinical Psychology Program offers a PhD in Clinical Psychology and adopts a clinical science training model; that is, we prepare students for careers in clinical research. Faculty and students engage in basic and applied research on topics such as psychotherapy, psychopathology, development, emotion, cognition, neuropsychology, family systems, multiculturalism, and so forth. Our program also trains students to engage in empirically grounded clinical practice and to integrate scientific and professional activities. Importantly, our program is inappropriate for students interested in full-time clinical practice with minimal research interests and commitment. 

For more information on the UMass Clinical Psychology Program as a whole, please visit our website. This site also contains information on program costs and assistantships, admissions procedures, faculty, frequently asked questions, student admissions and outcomes data, etc. Becoming familiar with the information on the website will go a long way in helping you decide whether applying to UMass makes personal sense. Below I provide additional information on working with me in The Psychotherapy Research Lab, in particular. The UMass Clinical Psychology Program espouses a mentor model; that is, students are admitted to the program to work under the mentorship of a specific faculty member. Thus, if I am not accepting students as per the banner above, it may make sense to not apply or to delay applying (if my lab is a top choice for you); it is extremely rare for a student to be admitted by another faculty member and then transfer to my lab. Although my trainees will have substantial contact with other faculty members, the quality of match with one's primary advisor is vital to successful training. For me, I am most interested in working with students who are genuinely excited to study, both quantitatively and qualitatively, the process and outcome of psychotherapy for adult patients (see our Current Research page for specific lines of research on which we are currently working).

Beyond interest match, I look to work with bright, hard-working, energetic, and personable individuals who have a background in psychotherapy theory, psychotherapy research, and relevant statistical methods, and who are curious about the nature of psychopathology, psychotherapy, and human change. Ideally, students will have worked in one or more research labs prior to applying, and they will have been a co-author on one or more publications and/or presentations. Further, I wish to work with students who are interested in research-oriented careers in academic or industry settings. Students with such interests will thrive in my lab and in the program in general. However, it is important that such interests are sincere, so please consider this carefully before applying. Of course, as a psychotherapy researcher, I am also inherently interested in the practice of psychotherapy. My psychotherapy orientation is integrative (with an interpersonal/relational bent), and closely informed by research on common factors, interpersonal processes, and context-responsiveness.

In terms of my mentorship style, I take an active, “hands-on” approach in attempting to model careful attention to both the forest and the trees in empirical work. Although I offer significant guidance and constructive feedback to my advisees, I also treat them as valued research collaborators. I work hard to foster a cohesive lab environment where people feel free to explore personally intriguing research questions, while at the same time devote energy to the larger mission of the lab. At any given time, The Psychotherapy Research Lab is typically comprised of graduate students, undergraduate research assistants, research volunteers, and an undergraduate honors student working on their thesis. I hold weekly or biweekly individual research meetings with each of my graduate students and my thesis student, as well as weekly lab meetings. I also hold project-specific meetings, as needed. I can genuinely say, without hesitation, that mentoring students is one of the most rewarding aspects of my job. In this role, I treat graduate students as highly valued colleagues in training, and I continually attempt to foster the enhancement of their scholarship, the effective articulation of their ideas (through writing and presentation), and the development of their professional demeanor and network. Also, when possible, I attempt to fund my students through research assistantships for at least part of their graduate careers. This is dependent on grant funding, so it is not always consistent. However, students in our program receive other forms of assistantships during their training (e.g., teaching assistantships), and they are also encouraged to apply for external funding (e.g., predoctoral research grants). Some students also receive competitively awarded internal or external fellowships.

I also have expectations for my graduate students. Above all, I expect them to be dedicated to their training. I expect them to participate in and collaborate on multiple research projects from the start of their graduate career. I also expect them to develop their own research programs under my guidance, and to engage regularly in the dissemination of research through co-authored publications and professional presentations. Regarding publications, all of my students attempt to publish while in residence; in fact, I aim to have students publish, at a minimum, a first-year project, their master's thesis, and their dissertation. In addition to collaboration on other projects, my hope is that students will have at least 10 publications (combined articles and book chapters) by the time they complete the program (many will have more, especially when combined with publications they had prior to entering the program). Regarding presentations, most of my students are members of various professional organizations (e.g., the Society for Psychotherapy Research, the Society for the Exploration of Psychotherapy Integration, Division 29 [Society for the Advancement of Psychotherapy] of the American Psychological Association), and they typically travel to one or two conferences per year to present their work. Attendance at such meetings also enhances students' professional network, which can be crucial when planning subsequent stages of one's training (e.g., postdoctoral fellowships). I also expect my students to treat training as a full-time, 12-month endeavor; that is, I expect students to work on their research over the summer (and either I or the department will provide funding during these months). Finally, I expect students to stay mostly in residence for at least five years prior to going on internship. Although there may be infrequent exceptions to this policy, I largely follow this model.