Doctorate in Clinical Psychology Overview
If you’re interested in building your own clinical practice, this APA-accredited PsyD program at our Fresno campus is an excellent place to gain the needed skills and experience. The program emphasizes clinical skills and the application of research knowledge with diverse populations in a wide range of settings.
The Fresno PsyD program takes a systemic approach, training you to consider the role of diverse systems in creating and remedying individual and social problems such as child abuse. It also teaches you to think beyond treating individual problems to becoming an advocate for groups of clients with similar issues, acting as a powerful agent of change in your community.
The Fresno PsyD faculty is committed to offering a broad array of elective courses reflecting theory, assessment, and intervention across systems, especially cultural systems. The importance of the cultural system is emphasized throughout your academic and clinical training. This focus on cultural issues will help prepare you for professional practice in a pluralistic society.
To learn more about this program and other offerings, visit our CSPP-dedicated microsite. You’ll find videos featuring our university president, dean of CSPP, and faculty, along with numerous interactive features!
Admissions
Learn About Admissions Requirements
Faculty
Get to Know Our Diverse Faculty
Degree Information
Forensic Psychology Experience Area
The field of clinical forensic psychology explores clinical services that can be provided to clients with criminal and non-criminal contact with the legal system. In addition to working in prisons and jails, you’ll learn about needs related to divorce, custody mediation, worker’s compensation evaluations, disability evaluations, child abuse, and adoption.
Learn more about the emphasis area here.
Program Competencies
All students are expected to acquire and demonstrate substantial understanding of and competence in the following nine profession-wide competency areas:
- Research
- Ethical and legal standards
- Individual and cultural diversity
- Professional values, attitudes and behaviors
- Communication and interpersonal skills
- Assessment
- Intervention
- Supervision
- Consultation and interprofessional/interdisciplinary skills
In addition, students are expected to possess discipline-specific knowledge in the following four areas:
- History and systems of psychology
- The basic content areas of scientific psychology, including biological, affective/cognitive, developmental, and social aspects of behavior.
- Advanced integrative knowledge in scientific psychology.
- Research methods, statistical analysis, and psychometrics.
Fresno: A Great Place to Study and Take a Break
Fresno is in California’s Central Valley, the agricultural center of the state, and is close to Yosemite, Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks and other major recreation areas. It’s a medical and correctional hub, providing an array of career and experience opportunities.
Fresno Degree Features
Students in the Fresno PsyD degree program benefit from several unique, campus-specific features. In addition to their basic education in clinical psychology, they have the opportunity to focus their study and clinical expertise by specializing their degree with an experience or emphasis area.
The Fresno doctor of psychology program also offers students the opportunity to gain practical skills providing mental health services through campus-based practica.
Fresno Area Community Services and Placements.
Recent Fresno Clinical PsyD awards
In 2022, the Fresno Clinical PsyD program was awarded a 3-year, $607,418 Graduate Psychology Education (GPE) grant by the Health Resources & Services Administration (HRSA), which is part of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. The GPE grant allows the program to address the following priorities: (a) increasing the number of psychologists trained in integrated behavioral health, (b) building community-based partnerships in high-need, high-demand areas, (c) strengthening healthcare access through telehealth, (d) advancing health equity, and (e) improving healthcare in rural areas.
In 2021, the Fresno Clinical PsyD program also received the Suinn Minority Achievement Program Award from the American Psychological Association. Each year, this prestigious award goes to one or two graduate psychology programs in the U.S. that have demonstrated excellence in the recruitment, retention, and graduation of ethnic minority students.
Explore our clinical psychology program research opportunities, practicum partners, and student communities.
LEARN MORE
Program Aims
Aim 1: Provide students with discipline-specific scientific knowledge to support the effective entry-level practice of clinical psychology.
Aim 2: Train competent health service psychologists (HSPs) to deliver scientifically-informed psychological services to diverse individuals and groups.
Aim 3: Provide students with strong professional identities as licensed psychologists and the clinical skills, professional behaviors, and attitudes that reflect the highest ethical and professional standards in the entry-level practice of clinical psychology.
Training and Internship
Professional Training and Internship Opportunities
Gain Clinical Skills, Meet Critical Needs
Direct service to the community is an important component of every graduate student’s learning experience at CSPP. Students in the clinical psychology doctoral programs at the Fresno campus have exceptional opportunities to gain practical skills as they provide crucial services to under-served populations at the W. Gary Cannon Psychological Services Center and through internships facilitated by the many community and mental health agencies that are members of the California Psychology Internship Consortium.
W. Gary Cannon Psychological Services Center (PSC)
The W. Gary Cannon Psychological Services Center (PSC) of Fresno is a mental health agency operated by Alliant. It is an outpatient community clinic, providing a wide range of mental health services in the Central Valley, including services for underserved populations. Clinical services are provided by practicum students and interns under the supervision of licensed clinical psychologists. All treatment modalities foster sensitivity to ethnicity, class, race, gender and sexual orientation. All students spend at least one year of their practicum training within the PSC.
Accreditation
The clinical psychology PsyD program is accredited by the Commission on Accreditation of the American Psychological Association (APA), which requires that we provide data on time to completion, program costs, internships, attrition, and licensure. Please follow the link below for that information. We hope this information will help you to make an informed decision regarding your graduate study in higher education.
Student Admissions, Outcomes, and Other Data (.pdf)
The California School of Professional Psychology clinical psychology PsyD program is offered on the Fresno, Sacramento, Los Angeles, San Diego, and San Francisco Bay Area campuses. Each is accredited by the Commission on Accreditation of the American Psychological Association (APA).
* Questions related to a program’s accredited status should be directed to the Commission on Accreditation.
Office of Program Consultation and Accreditation
American Psychological Association
750 1st Street, NE, Washington, DC 20002
Phone: (202) 336-5979
Email: apaaccred@apa.org
Web: https://www.apa.org/ed/accreditation
Our Campus Location
Alliant International University
5130 E Clinton Way
Fresno, CA 93727
Directions to Campus
Links and Downloads
Why Alliant
At Alliant, our mission is to prepare students for professional careers of service and leadership and to promote the discovery and application of knowledge to improve lives. We offer an education that is accredited, focused on practical knowledge and skills, connected with diverse faculty and alumni, and aimed at the student experience.
Why CSPP
Founded in 1969, CSPP was one of the nation’s first independent schools of professional psychology. Today, CSPP continues its commitment to preparing the next generation of mental health professionals through graduate-level degree programs in clinical psychology, marriage and family therapy, clinical counseling, organizational psychology, psychopharmacology, and more.
