Training Opportunities for Challenge-Focused Career Development in Clinical Psychology

Ultimately, all procedures in clinical science come with an expiration date. Whether it is therapeutic practices, assessment techniques, research questions, research measures, or data analytic approaches, all have their moment on center stage and then the spotlight moves elsewhere. If this observation is correct, then we do our students a great disservice by training them primarily to be proceduralists, regardless of whether that involves training them to administer a particular set of empirically supported treatments or to apply a particular set of research methods to a particular set of research questions. In both clinical practice and research, our students are best served if we prepare them to identify problems, synthesize available knowledge, develop solutions, test those solutions, and inspire others to use and advance what they have learned. This is certainly not to say that training should be content or procedure free but, rather, that learning content and mastering procedures should not be the primary goals of doctoral-level clinical science training. (Levenson, 2014, p. 37)

Duke Scholars

Author Timothy J. Strauman Psychology & Neuroscience