Nicholas Papouchis, Ph.D., ABPP
Director, Ph.D. Program (718) 488-1164, nickp@netcommail.com
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The Program:
The Ph.D. Program in Clinical Psychology at Long Island University's
Brooklyn campus offers a full-time course of professional and
scholarly study, which leads to the degree Doctor of Philosophy.
The program emphasizes the integration of advanced skills in intervention
techniques, psychological assessment, and scholarly research.
These skills prepare the future clinical psychologist to diagnose,
treat and study a broad range of psychological phenomena. Graduates
of the program have the scholarly credentials for academic, research
and clinical positions. The training follows a “scholar-practitioner
model” in which dual emphasis is placed on both
clinical training and scholarly research, in full accordance with
APA guidelines.
The Ph.D. program was founded in 1968 and was first accredited
by the American Psychological Association in 1974. It continues
to be fully accredited by the American Psychological Association.
Founded and directed by John E. Exner, Jr., author of the Rorschach
Comprehensive System, from 1968 until 1978, the LIU program has
been the institutional home for the development of many important
techniques of psychological assessment, including research into
several of the central variables of the Rorschach Comprehensive
System. Lawrence O. Brown, Ph.D. served as director the program
from 1978 until 1984 when the program leadership was assumed by
Nicholas Papouchis, Ph.D., ABPP. Professor Papouchis has directed
the program for the past 21 years. This continuity of leadership
has allowed the program to engage in a process of evolution, integrating
new developments in the field without a changing its core mission.
The faculty believes that the science of psychology provides the
foundation from which the clinical psychologist’s skills
develop. Consistent with this belief, the program provides students
with a firm grounding in both the basic theories and empirical
findings in psychology and the fundamentals of psychological research
design and methodology.
In clinical work, the theoretical orientation of the program is
strongly influenced by the psychodynamic approaches to psychotherapy.
In the first year of the program, students are introduced to psychodynamic
approaches as well as short-term cognitive-behavioral therapies,
while in the second and third years, they are trained more intensively
in the spectrum of psychodynamic theories and techniques as they
apply to clinical work with children, adolescents and adults.
Externship settings selected by advanced students offer training
in these approaches. For those students who have a special interest
in pursuing cognitive-behavioral approaches to treatment, advanced
coursework and clinical experience in this area is available.
During the past decade, the program has received exemplary reports
from both the A.P.A. and the New York State Department of Education.
The New York State evaluation of the program, conducted in March
of 1994, stated:
“Faculty members serve as excellent models of the scholar-practitioner
the program intends to produce. The program has developed not
only a strong research training base but a student attitude that
science and practice represent an interactive approach to being
a clinical psychologist. It is clear that the atmosphere of the
department is such that the integration of research and clinical
activities has been successfully melded. The students rotate to
an extensive and rich array of clinical practica with very strong
psychologist supervision. (They) are gifted and all are making
reasonable progress to complete their degrees.”
As the New York State site visit report highlighted, the program
can be considered as having the type of esprit one hopes to see
in graduate education
The APA site visit team, who visited in the program in 1997, ranked
the Ph.D. program in the "exemplary" range in most categories,
praising both the coursework and practicum training. The report
noted that "internship and externship supervisors have described
the LIU students as being clinically the best trained in the City,
as being broadly-based clinicians clearly ahead of their peers
in clinical skills and testing capabilities, and as having the
highest ethical standards.”
The most recent A.P.A. site visit in November 2000, resulted in
the Ph.D. program’s continued accreditation for a full seven
years. The site visitors again commented on the level of excellence
of the clinical and research training.
“The program labels itself as a “scholar-practitioner
model”, which is a modest self description considering the
degree of focus on research that occurs within the program. For
instance, students conduct a second year research project which
they are encouraged to present at a professional conference; dissertations
are empirical; the new hires in the department are strong research
faculty; the program has just begun a large scale research program
focusing on the effectiveness of the in-house clinic; and outside
supervisors comment on how well prepared the students are in research....Practicum
training is well thought out in this program. As noted, first-year
placements are carefully chosen. In the second year, students
are exposed to two faculty supervisors, as well as a case conference
in which (at least) three faculty discuss their different orientations
to cases...Externship supervisors were very positive about their
experiences with LIU clinical students…..All six (externship
supervisors (interviewed) indicated that they had worked with
students from several doctoral programs and rated LIU students
as the top students. They stated that the LIU students had the
most preparation in clinical theory and were best prepared to
work with difficult clients. They also commented on how well versed
the students were on issues of diversity and cultural differences….Students
are amply trained for their internship experience. They have had
no difficulties in receiving internships at excellent sites.”
As the APA and New York State visits have consistently
indicated, the program is noted as one of the finest in the New
York area and it continues to grow in quality and stature.
Each entering class of 16 students is trained by
a core group of fourteen full-time Ph.D. faculty and five clinical
adjuncts. This student-faculty ratio, rare in a program of this
size, enables the faculty to serve as academic advisors, clinical
supervisors and research mentors in an atmosphere of stimulating
intellectual dialogues about both clinical and research phenomena.
The diversity of the student body at the Brooklyn Campus and the
Ph.D. program’s collaborative relationships with a variety
of New York area training facilities enable students to develop
their skills in an intense and varied multicultural learning environment.
Student research covers a number of different areas. Recent topics
have included empirical investigations of clinical phenomena and
clinical populations; psychotherapy process and outcome; cultural
issues in psychology, developmental studies using both observational
and experimental approaches; social psychological field studies;
issues in the psychology of women; aspects of cognitive functioning
and language development; and issues in neuropsychology.
Financial Aid:
Financial aid is available to students entering the program on
a regular basis.
This aid is typically given in the form of a half-tuition remission
research assistantship which has a small stipend of no less than
$1200 per year. Full tuition remission Minority Fellowships which
include a minimum stipend of $3500 are available for minority
students. In the second and third years of training Ph.D. students
are eligible to teach undergraduate courses as Teaching Fellows.
These positions earn the student a $2400 stipend and three credits
of tuition remission.
The Student Body:
Each year the program receives between 200 and 300 completed applications.
Approximately 100 applicants are interviewed and from this group
a final class of 15 or 16 students is selected. In the past several
years, while some students have entered the program directly from
their undergraduate institutions, many applicants have been admitted
after spending time in the field either doing graduate work at
the Master’s level or working in the psychological community
for several years. Others enter the program following a career
change, having done additional preparatory work in psychology
prior to acceptance. All applicants are expected to have worked
in research and clinical settings in addition to completing the
required coursework. In instances when disabled students have
been accepted, the program and the university have been committed
to meeting the students’ special needs.
Students in the program represent the diverse group
described above, and come from a broad spectrum of undergraduate
institutions many of which are among the finest institutions in
the country. Over the past five years, students accepted into
the program have averaged a combined score of above 1250 on the
verbal and quantitative sections of the Graduate Record Examinations.
Applicants to the program also typically have varying degrees
of experience in research and clinical work. The program is especially
interested in increasing the number of aspiring minority scholars.
To that end, there are three minority fellowships available to
each entering class.
Clinical Internships:
It is important to note that in the era of internship matching,
all of our internship applicants have been placed in an APA accredited
internship placements for the past five years. The following are
a list of the clinical internship placements attended by doctoral
students in the Ph.D. program during this period. Many of these
placements accept more than one of our Ph.D. students year in
a given year and all accept our students on a regular basis.
Albert Einstein College of Medicine, Bronx Municipal
Hospital Center
Bronx, New York
Albert Einstein College of Medicine, Bronx Psychiatric Center.
Bronx, New York
Astor Home for Children, Rhinebeck, New York
Bellevue Hospital Center, New York University, New York, New York
Beth Israel Medical Center, New York, New York
Bronx V.A. Medical Center, Bronx, New York
Brooklyn V.A. Medical Center, Brooklyn, New York
Center for Preventive Psychiatry, White Plains, New York
Columbia Presbyterian Medical Center, New York, New York
Gouverneur Hospital, New York, New York
Jewish Board of Family and Children Services, New York, New York
Jewish Child Care Association, New York, New York
Kings County Hospital Center, Brooklyn, New York
Lenox Hill Hospital, New York, New York
Lincoln Hospital Medical and Mental Health Center, Bronx, New
York
Long Island Jewish Medical Center/ Hillside Hospital, Glen Oaks,
New York
Maimonides Medical Center, Brooklyn, New York
Metropolitan Hospital Center, New York, New York
Montefiore Medical Center, Bronx, New York
Nassau University Medical Center, East Meadow, New York
New York University Medical Center, Rusk Institute, New York,
New York
Nova Southeastern Community Mental Health Center, Fort Lauderdale,
Florida
Saint Mary’s Children and Family Services, Syosset, New
York
St. Lukes/Roosevelt Hospital Center, New York, New York
Sunset Park Mental Health Center, Brooklyn, New York
Trinitas Hospital, Elizabeth, New Jersey
Westchester Jewish Community Services, Westchester, New York
Yale University, New Haven, Conn.
