How many Intervention & Assessment hrs did you have when applying to internship

[erg923]

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Yes yes, I realize its more about quality than quantity but.........
Just wanted to take a survey (for those who are willing) on how many intervention and assesment hours you had when submitting for predoctoral internship? If you know/remember your total number, provide that too if your willing. If you want to be even more despriptive, approx how many were therapy and how many were assessment/intake?

 

[cmuhooligan]

Yes yes, I realize its more about quality than quantity but.........
Just wanted to take a survey (for those who are willing) on how many intervention and assesment hours you had when submitting for predoctoral internship? If you know/remember your total number, provide that too if your willing. If you want to be even more despriptive, approx how many were therapy and how many were assessment/intake?

I had a shade over 1k, with about 350 being Tx, 650 Dx.

 

[SingingCow]

Yes yes, I realize its more about quality than quantity but.........
Just wanted to take a survey (for those who are willing) on how many intervention and assesment hours you had when submitting for predoctoral internship? If you know/remember your total number, provide that too if your willing. If you want to be even more despriptive, approx how many were therapy and how many were assessment/intake?

About 860 total. About 400 was assessment, 460 was intervention.

 

[positivepsych]

You don't need to do a survey on SDN (plus I imagine the posters here would be skewed towards the high end). APPIC publishes this data, just check out their website for years past.

 

[psybee]

looking forward (as in to the future, not as in with pleasure) to applying for internship in fall 2011 (my 4th year), i am a little concerned if i will have enough testing experience to apply then. I'm a 2nd yr and I've done assessments (structured ones include the SCID, ADIS, MINI, MADRAS) in my current externship and will do more in my next one, but neither had/has me doing full test batteries. My gameplan is to do either a neuro or inpt externship my 4th year but i'm worried I won't have an actual test report ready by the November deadline, as many clinical externships here start in September. My main longterm career focus is primary care psych/consult liason, and VA's tend to me my top choices when I peruse sites now.

Many thanks!

 

[robinsena]

How's your clinical training? You will need solid clinical training & hours in addition to assessments for a place like a VA, even if that is not your primary interest.

It's smart to plan ahead. Many sites require 1-2 integrated assessment samples (if not then, some type of case assessment/writeup) in their application.

looking forward (as in to the future, not as in with pleasure) to applying for internship in fall 2011 (my 4th year), i am a little concerned if i will have enough testing experience to apply then. I'm a 2nd yr and I've done assessments (structured ones include the SCID, ADIS, MINI, MADRAS) in my current externship and will do more in my next one, but neither had/has me doing full test batteries. My gameplan is to do either a neuro or inpt externship my 4th year but i'm worried I won't have an actual test report ready by the November deadline, as many clinical externships here start in September. My main longterm career focus is primary care psych/consult liason, and VA's tend to me my top choices when I peruse sites now.

Many thanks!

 

[erg923]

Since i did all my neuropsych assessments at a VA, how does one get permission to pull any of those reports off their electronic medical record system to keep and eventually send off (de-identified of course) to internship sites. Since i cant take anything home from that facility, how do people get around this?

 

[psybee]

How's your clinical training? You will need solid clinical training & hours in addition to assessments for a place like a VA, even if that is not your primary interest.

It's smart to plan ahead. Many sites require 1-2 integrated assessment samples (if not then, some type of case assessment/writeup) in their application.

I'm in a health riented clinical phd program and my clinical training is very solid -- right now i have tons of hours with very diverse pts in a medical setting (over 250 face to face now and this is my 1st practica out of three and i still have 5 more months to go). but the externships that have provided me with the opp for getting intervention hours, heavy caseloads, and numerous intakes don't do full testing, even the VA externship that i'm doing next year (though once again i'll get a great variety of diverse clinical expereinces ). I'll have multiple pubs, presentations, lots of outreach and program development experience when i ultimately apply and I feel like i'll be a strong candidate ( knock on wood) but i am wondering how in the world i'll get a chance to do some serious testing (outside of testing classmates, etc as part of our training in school) before november 2011...

 

[Therapist4Chnge]

Since i did all my neuropsych assessments at a VA, how does one get permission to pull any of those reports off their electronic medical record system to keep and eventually send off (de-identified of course) to internship sites. Since i cant take anything home from that facility, how do people get around this?

While I can't speak directly to practica restrictions at the VA, the way it is generally handled at the internship level is that you have to go to your DCT and have him/her approve any de-identified material before you can do anything with the material. In regard to deidentifying material, I'd suggest consulting with the APA Ethics Code, as the requirements are quite specific. I found a powerpoint on Google that outlined all of the requirements, though I can't find it at the moment.

 

[robinsena]

I had that problem too. I found that I had to advocate for myself at externship and told my supervisors outright that I really needed opportunities to conduct full assessments. All my supervisors have been very understanding. I hope that your supervisors @ the externship at the VA next year would understand if you ask them if you can do some more intensive assessments in addition to any intakes you may be doing... especially if they themselves have an internship program.

I'm guessing your school doesn't have its own training clinic? That's another place that some people have been able to find opportunities for testing.

I'm in a health riented clinical phd program and my clinical training is very solid -- right now i have tons of hours with very diverse pts in a medical setting (over 250 face to face now and this is my 1st practica out of three and i still have 5 more months to go). but the externships that have provided me with the opp for getting intervention hours, heavy caseloads, and numerous intakes don't do full testing, even the VA externship that i'm doing next year (though once again i'll get a great variety of diverse clinical expereinces ). I'll have multiple pubs, presentations, lots of outreach and program development experience when i ultimately apply and I feel like i'll be a strong candidate ( knock on wood) but i am wondering how in the world i'll get a chance to do some serious testing (outside of testing classmates, etc as part of our training in school) before november 2011...

 

[psybee]

bump

 

[O Gurl]

I think I had 700 intervention and 330 assessment and a buttload (660) of "support activities" like writing the reports, chart review, etc.

 

[O Gurl]

But one caveat- the ultimate number is not as important as the quality and diversity of experience. Yes, roughly 1000 face-to-face is considered the safe minimal bet, however, if that 1000 hrs lacks diversity of experience, it is likely not to be helpful. Also, I would strongly caution applicants to avoid fudging of any kind (not that anyone here would). Even if it means reporting hours that are less than the 1000 gold standard. You want to make sure that the level of clinical savvy you present in interviews matches the purported experience in your application. NOTHING is worse than a person who supposedly has a zillion hours and a CV full of experiences, but can't speak competently about them in an interview...

 

[erg923]

I will have 800 face to face hours by Nov1st and that is actually alot for applicants applying to internship from my program. Many have in the 600s and 700s. I did not know 1000 face to face was a kind of gold standard though...I think that depends on your programs focus?

 

[Therapist4Chnge]

When I went through the internship application process I got caught up with each hour, but in the end it really didn't matter as much as what I did during my hours.

 

[zzzz2]

1000 face-to-face hours seem to be above average, rather than a safe minimum.

 

[futureapppsy2]

This is something I've been wondering about, as my program doesn't start clinical work until the second year, and I've heard that second year's fairly light in terms of clinical hours anyway (which does make some sense from a training perspective). If I can get the funding for it, I'd open to building in an extra pre-internship year to get more hours before applying. OTOH, we have pretty good match rates (usually 80%-100% match APA) and most take five years (including internship), so maybe I'm overly concerned...

 

[JockNerd]

I'm going to have just over 400 f-2-f hours on my application. No one I know in my program has had over 600 hours and we've matched at 100% over the last several years. I've never heard of 1000 as a "safe minimum," especially 1000 f-2-f hours.

 

[O Gurl]

I am sure the avg number of face-to-face varies by program, but at my program, which equally emphasized clinical and research activites and where students usually apply for internship in their 5th year, 1000 has always been kinda the safe point--meaning that if you can crack that threshold then you need not worry. That was bearing in mind that we PhDs are also competing with PsyDs that may have far more than 1000 face to face hours. My total was slightly over 1000 and I was about avg. for my cohort that applied last year which ranged from 700-1100 face-to-face.

At any rate, I think we can all agree that it has more to do with the quality of the clinical hours, your training goals, and the overall compilation of your CV.

 

[futureapppsy2]

That was bearing in mind that we PhDs are also competing with PsyDs that may have far more than 1000 face to face hours.

Surprisingly, APPIC data shows that PhD applicants actually had both a higher mean and median number of assessment and intervention hours than PsyD applicants, though there is a lot more variance for the PhD applicants. This hasn't been significance tested and is likely influenced at least some what by the fact PhD students tend to take longer pre-internship (question 2 below), but it's still interesting food for thought, IMO. I wonder if there would still be a difference after controlling for years in grad school?

Question 10, below:

http://www.appic.org/match/5_2_2_4_10c_match_about_statistics_surveys_2008C.htm

 

[erg923]

Is this bc the average Ph.D student takes, on average 5 years before applying for internship, instead of 4, like most psyds? Thus, they have an extra full year of to accrue more practicum hours?

 

[erg923]

The following needs to be clearly cited and posted for new applicants who are coming on here and talking about how they want to get a Psy.D. bc they want to "focus" on clinical training and instead of "research."

10. Practicum hours and testing reports reported on the AAPI:

Ph.D. Psy.D.
Intevention & Assessment Hours
Median 833 726
Mean 943 799
St. Dev. 616 383

Supervision Hours
Median 390 313
Mean 428 354
St. Dev. 221 192

Adult Testing Reports
Median 6 6
Mean 21 20
St. Dev. 78 74

 

[deleted176373]

Don't go confusing people with facts, they have an agenda don't you know.

 

[Ollie123]

Yeah...definitely depends what your area is, what kind of programs you are applying to, etc. For places like CMHC's...maybe. Academic centers? Probably not.

Its very common for students in my program to have less than 1000 hours. I know with the research responsibilities I have, I'm aiming for 600 face to face and even that is going to require sacrificing some sleep. We also usually have a pretty good match rate, and students tend to match at very good sites.

 

[AcronymAllergy]

I'm still in the process of adding everything up (did a horrible job of keeping track of things early in my grad school career; please, do NOT follow my example).

Currently, I'd hazard a guess that I'm somewhere around the 1000-1500 hour mark, of which the majority are assessment (including ~100 "full-on" 6-8 hour neuropsych or neuropsych-oriented psychoeducational evaluations; a few dozen each of psychological assessment/intake, dementia evaluation in an ID population, and forensic; and ~150 brief patient contacts in a primary care medical setting). Therapy hours tentatively look to be falling in the 125-150 hour range.

 

[krisrox]

A bit of a different question, but it has to do with tracking hours...

I'm lucky in that my program starts immersing us in clinical hours starting from week 1. I'm currently in a supervision group with a licensed psych where a senior student supervises an intermediate student and the first-years (Hi! That's me!) get to come along for the ride. We're involved with case conceptualization, choosing assessments, shadowing interviews and assessment batteries; we have full access to the patient's file, but we don't actually get to administer anything. What kind of hours would I log for this work in T2T? Supervision? Support?

Thanks!

 

[Therapist4Chnge]

There can be a lot of variance in that role, so it is best to ask your DCT, who I'm guessing has had to answer the question before for students ahead of you.

 

[KayJay85]

I am in my 3rd year of my phd studies and by my calculations am projected to have between 500-600 face to face hours at the end of this year. Further out, I expect to have at least 800 by the end of 4th year. I am not sure yet if I am going to apply for internship next year or give myself my fifth year to get a few pubs under my belt and possibly complete my dissertation. The avg. face to face hours for my program is near that 1000 mark but apparently there is a lot of debate about what is "average". I am a bit puzzled by programs where students are applying for internship with less than 600 hours. I am assuming those going through the match are doing so because they expect to get licensed as a clinical practitioner. If that is the case, then I would think that your program is doing you a disservice by only providing about 150 patient contact hours each year- and that is if we are assuming a 4 year track. It would be only 120 contact hours over 5 years. That is really not a lot of time to practice before going into a clinically demanding internship year. If research is that much more weighted, then why would the program be clinical at all? There are plenty of other types of programs, like experimental psych, or developmental, or social, that would prepare professionals for academic careers without putting them through the extra hoops associated with clinical licensure. Perhaps I am missing something...???

 

[Ollie123]

Actually if we go way back, clinical psychology programs were almost entirely academic and the clinical experience was obtained primarily on internship. There is actually some pressure to reduce the number of expected hours for internships because some internship directors feel it is becoming absurd and people are focusing more on racking up hours than on the other important aspects of grad school. I haven't heard of many situations where people are coming out with < 600...even at the extremely heavy-research programs I think most people are over that (we are one and I think our average is more like 800).

As for the other degrees...I think it depends what the goals are. There are advantages to licensure for people who want research careers. You won't see many people with a social psychology degree running treatment studies. I'm one example of this...I have zero interest in a clinical career and would sooner go back for my engineering degree than become a staff psychologist somewhere, yet I still really value receiving clinical training and will probably pursue licensure in the interest of doing some translational work, and may continue seeing patients some within my specialty area just to retain those skills and because I believe that the best psychopathology researchers typically ARE doing both (at least to some extent).

I think there are a lot of factors at play here. 1) Internship is a part of training - the shortage has made it so people are often asking "How much experience do I need going into it" but I think its more critical to be asking how qualified people are coming out of it. 2) Every day I become more convinced the raw numbers are meaningless. You could get nearly enough hours by doing one 20-hour a week practicum, but I'm not convinced that is in any way a good idea as the experience would be in one setting, it says nothing about supervision, etc. I've met a number of folks with wicked clinical hours who were (in my eyes) not in any way ready to go on internship because that was their primary focus. That said, I'm obviously not advocating "No clinical training in graduate school", but I'm not sure I see a reason face-to-face hours should be so heavily emphasized.

 

[thewesternsky]

We get approximately 150 client contact hours per year in our in-house clinic. (3 therapy clients at a time, consistently, at about an hour a week, throughout the course of our training after first year). We also have some external practicum requirements where people can get more contact hours.

I'm curious about how KayJay's (and other programs) where students get more face-to-face hours operate. Do you have more than 3 clients at a time? Do you do required external practica every year?

Many students (myself included) like and value the research component of our training, and feel it makes us better practitioners. I can ask the same question of you:

'If clinical work is that much more weighted, then why would the program be a Ph.D. at all? There are plenty of other types of programs, like marriage and family therapy, or social work, that would prepare professionals for clinical careers without putting them through the extra hoops associated with research. Perhaps I am missing something...???'

Anyway, we don't need another thread on research versus clinical focus. The Ph.D. under the Boulder model comprises both aspects. Programs implement this to various degrees. There's nothing wrong with you applying to internship with 1000 contact hours and no publications; there's also nothing wrong with people in my program applying with 500 hours and 6 publications...

Or do you still think there is?

 

[Markro311]

We get approximately 150 client contact hours per year in our in-house clinic. (3 therapy clients at a time, consistently, at about an hour a week, throughout the course of our training after first year). We also have some external practicum requirements where people can get more contact hours.

I'm curious about how KayJay's (and other programs) where students get more face-to-face hours operate. Do you have more than 3 clients at a time? Do you do required external practica every year?

Many students (myself included) like and value the research component of our training, and feel it makes us better practitioners. I can ask the same question of you:

'If clinical work is that much more weighted, then why would the program be a Ph.D. at all? There are plenty of other types of programs, like marriage and family therapy, or social work, that would prepare professionals for clinical careers without putting them through the extra hoops associated with research. Perhaps I am missing something...???'

Anyway, we don't need another thread on research versus clinical focus. The Ph.D. under the Boulder model comprises both aspects. Programs implement this to various degrees. There's nothing wrong with you applying to internship with 1000 contact hours and no publications; there's also nothing wrong with people in my program applying with 500 hours and 6 publications...

Or do you still think there is?

I agree. Training programs can be rated on a continuum ranging from very research-focused to very clinical-focused, and it's a positive that there is such variety.

In terms of how people can accumulate more hours, many practica certainly allow for more than 3 hours of direct contact a week. Larger caseloads, facilitating groups, intake interviews, etc. can all really add up. I averaged about 9-10 contact hours per week at my previous therapy practicum (which was a full year). Some weeks were more like 4-5 hours per week, but some weeks were in the low teens. It just depended on the amount of no-shows, new clients, etc.

 

[KayJay85]

We get approximately 150 client contact hours per year in our in-house clinic. (3 therapy clients at a time, consistently, at about an hour a week, throughout the course of our training after first year). We also have some external practicum requirements where people can get more contact hours.

I'm curious about how KayJay's (and other programs) where students get more face-to-face hours operate. Do you have more than 3 clients at a time? Do you do required external practica every year?

Many students (myself included) like and value the research component of our training, and feel it makes us better practitioners. I can ask the same question of you:

'If clinical work is that much more weighted, then why would the program be a Ph.D. at all? There are plenty of other types of programs, like marriage and family therapy, or social work, that would prepare professionals for clinical careers without putting them through the extra hoops associated with research. Perhaps I am missing something...???'

Anyway, we don't need another thread on research versus clinical focus. The Ph.D. under the Boulder model comprises both aspects. Programs implement this to various degrees. There's nothing wrong with you applying to internship with 1000 contact hours and no publications; there's also nothing wrong with people in my program applying with 500 hours and 6 publications...

Or do you still think there is?

In my program, it is definitely the norm to be engaged in some sort of clinical externship at all times. Our program operates from a scientist practitioner model. Few if any of our students apply for internship without a publication or two. Thus, I would strongly argue that my program does not weigh clinical work over research. In fact, my current assistantship is a 20 hour per week research position that still leaves 20 hours per week to engage in clinical activities.My original question was in consideration of the fact that internship search is so competitive and is followed by quite a strenuous licensure process in order to practice clinically. If one were to go through all of that, I would assume that clinical work will likely be a significant part of their future career goal. If it is, then I am slightly confused about the blatant over emphasis on research. With 40 hours per week in a normal work week, I am a bit floored by only 3 hours being devoted to clinical practice.

 

[KillerDiller]

I am a bit puzzled by programs where students are applying for internship with less than 600 hours. I am assuming those going through the match are doing so because they expect to get licensed as a clinical practitioner. If that is the case, then I would think that your program is doing you a disservice by only providing about 150 patient contact hours each year- and that is if we are assuming a 4 year track. It would be only 120 contact hours over 5 years. That is really not a lot of time to practice before going into a clinically demanding internship year. If research is that much more weighted, then why would the program be clinical at all? There are plenty of other types of programs, like experimental psych, or developmental, or social, that would prepare professionals for academic careers without putting them through the extra hoops associated with clinical licensure. Perhaps I am missing something...???

Actually, I think you are missing a couple things 🙂. I couldn't tell from your post what your program does, but lots of Ph.D programs don't have first year students complete a practicum. They do this because they want to expose students to clinical theory, ethics, etc. first. Second, students apply for internship in the fall and thus may only have a couple of months at a new practicum site before they need to submit their total hours. So, a student who is on the 5 year track may only have 2 years and a couple months of practicum experience. 500 hours for such an applicant seems reasonable to me. That's well over 200 contact hours a year, which is more than 4 contact hours a week on average, or more if the practica don't go over the summer, which i have found is fairly common.

 

[O Gurl]

In my program, it is definitely the norm to be engaged in some sort of clinical externship at all times. Our program operates from a scientist practitioner model. Few if any of our students apply for internship without a publication or two. Thus, I would strongly argue that my program does not weigh clinical work over research. In fact, my current assistantship is a 20 hour per week research position that still leaves 20 hours per week to engage in clinical activities.My original question was in consideration of the fact that internship search is so competitive and is followed by quite a strenuous licensure process in order to practice clinically. If one were to go through all of that, I would assume that clinical work will likely be a significant part of their future career goal. If it is, then I am slightly confused about the blatant over emphasis on research. With 40 hours per week in a normal work week, I am a bit floored by only 3 hours being devoted to clinical practice.

I think your question is actually getting at the issue of the required APA-approved internship regardless of career goals or program emphasis. It sounds like our programs are relatively similar in that it is possible to do half clinical and half research. In my case, we are fortunate to be situated in the middle of a medical campus, so students had access to various hospitals and clinics which offered 1-2 day/week clinical opportunities in addition to our small caseload. I think that given the fact that internship is a requirement for clinical PhDs there should be more research-friendly internship opportunities. I certainly see your point, and have had friends demonstrate the point, that securing a majority clinical internship is a tad harder when you are trying to sell 500 face-to-face hours against people with 1000. It is also just as damaging to have a ton of hours and no publications. However, I'm assuming that is an easier issue to "get around" so to speak.

I have current intern cohorts at our predominately clinical site (only 4-8 hrs/week research) who will likely have no major need for licensing. One is actually interested in policy work, which is really cool IMO. I think internships have to catch up to the diversity of the field by offering more research-friendly and even policy/admin-friendly training sites. But I guess we are not re-inventing the wheel anytime soon.

 

[thewesternsky]

With 40 hours per week in a normal work week, I am a bit floored by only 3 hours being devoted to clinical practice.

The 3 hours of face-to-face therapy (three clients) is not exactly "only three hours devoted to clinical practice". Supervision is on an hour-per-hour basis, so that's another three hours/week, plus treatment planning, case notes, etc. Most students spend about one day a week throughout the program entirely on clinical work (plus the two required external practica).

 

[KayJay85]

I certainly did not mean to suggest anything negative or critical in my comments. I certainly agree that all programs are structured differently and that part of the reason people are drawn to psychology is for the flexibility. I guess my point is that it is strange that internships tend to be so heavily clinical when clearly the graduate training experience doesn't have to. From what I have seen of the clinical hours report for appic, they expect to see all of these hours in different settings, with different populations, that include interventions and assessments and so on. And when students are not allowed to practice in year one [thanks to person who pointed that out] and may be more research heavy on top of that, it just seems like a tougher situation for others. So I was wondering how programs that are more research heavy reconcile this for their students who are having to manage the process.

 

[zzzz2]

I guess my point is that it is strange that internships tend to be so heavily clinical when clearly the graduate training experience doesn't have to.

The heavy clinical focus during internship year does not contradict the more academic graduate training in research-oriented phd programs. It's meant to complement what you have learned up to the start of internship, including practicum experience and research experience.

 

[Therapist4Chnge]

The heavy clinical focus during internship year does not contradict the more academic graduate training in research-oriented phd programs. It's meant to complement what you have learned up to the start of internship, including practicum experience and research experience.

Solid clinical training can inform research and vice versa.