Courses

PSYC 541. Principles and Techniques in Adolescent Therapy. (3).
This course is designed to help the student appreciate the special nature of adolescent psychotherapy. The course will explore a variety of therapeutic orientations including the psychodynamic, family systems, cognitive-behavioral and neuropsychological. Students will be expected to provide a critical analysis of the literature as well as be willing to explore their own personal views and beliefs. Findings from research in adolescent development will be integrated with the literature on psychotherapy to help guide the student in constructing effective treatment plans. Clinical assessments will be taught that include DSM diagnoses as well as the impact of situational factors such as peer pressures, substance abuse, sexuality and violence. The student will be expected to become familiar with both research and clinical literature as it relates to psychotherapy with adolescents and to produce a scholarly research project. Lectures, movies and classroom activities will all be part of the educational experience. 

PSYC 560. Statistics I: Exploratory Data Analysis and Visualization. (3).
A good deal of statistics and research in psychological science involves the ability to conduct basic descriptive analyses and data visualizations. These skills can vary from data manipulation (arranging, renaming, filtering) and summarizing (exploring variation, covariation) to interactive data visualization and basic statistical modeling. In this introductory course, students will be introduced to the R statistical programming language and provided training in these basic competencies.

PSYC 562. Statistics II: Regression and Linear Models. (3).
The course provides an introduction to statistical modeling in clinical psychology and related fields. Students are introduced to hypothesis testing, bivariate correlation, regression, multiple regression, and logistic regression models.

PSYC 564. Advanced Research Methods. (3).
Research and evaluation methodology, including consideration of experimental, quasi-experimental, and other methods. Students write a detailed prospectus of a research project applying research methodology to a topic of interest. Prerequisite: PSYC 562

PSYC 565. Research Practicum. (3).
Applied knowledge base and research skills necessary for successful completion of a thesis. Requires completion of the first three chapters of the thesis. Prerequisites: PSYC 564

PSYC 566. Research Practicum (optional). (3).
Supervised experience in conducting resaerch for writing the master's thesis. 

PSYC 567. Statistics III: Hierarchical Linear Modeling. (3).
The course provides an introduction to the basic concepts and applications of hierarchical linear models (HLM). Research data in the social sciences are often grouped in ways that impact our statistical analyses (e.g., marital status, school/clinic/hospital setting, repeated treatment sessions). The course will cover growth curve modeling and meta-analysis as well as introduce models for dichotomous outcomes. The objective of the course is to provide students with an understanding of when and why HLM should be used and how to effectively apply the models to answer questions.

PSYC 568. Meta-Analysis. (3).
This course is designed to help students master the statistical techniques used to conduct quantitative meta-analyses. This class will focus on helping students learn how to calculate various kinds of effect sizes and to use them to conduct and make appropriate inferences from meta-analyses, to describe and discuss quantitative meta-analytic methods and associated results and to understand the statistics used in a broad array of meta-analytic scenarios.

PSYC 572. Structural Equation Models. (3).
This course introduces one of the newer multivariate techniques, structural equation modeling. This technique will be developed by relating it to the statistical analyses that was covered at preliminary courses such as causal inference, regression, and factor analysis. The course will cover family of methods known by path analysis, latent variable analysis, factor analysis, causal modeling, and model comparison. This course assumes no prior experience with this technique, and is intended as both a theoretical and practical introduction. The software package R studio will be used for exploring and providing support for structural models.

PSYD756. Introduction to Dialectical Behavior Therapy. (3).
Dialectical behavior therapy (DBT) is a comprehensive and flexible cognitive-behavioral intervention combining change strategies and acceptance strategies that are commonly encountered in many successful interventions for mental health problems. Through DBT one learns behavioral assessment and strategies, acceptance and validation, communication and case management strategies, problem solving and crisis management and many other principles and techniques that are widely used throughout psychological services.

PSYD758. Methods of Suicide Risk Assessment and Management. (3).
Students in this course will learn the risk factors predictive of suicide, gain familiarity with research examining the function of suicide, become proficient in conducting suicide risk assessments, learn principles of crisis intervention, and become proficient at conducting crisis interventions in a variety of clinical scenarios.

PSYD791. Acceptance and Commitment Therapy. (3).
Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) is a third-wave behavioral therapy that has robust empirical evidence for showing efficacy with a wide range of psychological problems. The therapy is based on Relational Frame Theory, which is the behavioral account of human language and cognition. As a truly experiential therapy, ACT employs mindfulness, acceptance, and behavioral freedom so that clients can direct their lives in accordance with their values. This course will utilize didactic, experiential, and applied learning in the philosophy, theory, and techniques of ACT.