Illinois School of Professional Psychology

at Argosy University, Chicago

COURSE SYLLABUS

PP6201-6202

Master’s Therapy Practicum Seminar

Faculty Information

Faculty Name: Margaret Smith-Zoeller, Psy.D.

Campus: Chicago

Contact Information:

Phone: 312-777-7708

E-Mail:

Office Hours: By Appt.

Short Faculty Bio: Margaret Smith-Zoeller, Psy.D. is an Associate Director of Clinical Training/Assistant Professor. Prior to coming to Argosy, she was a director of training and clinical supervisor in outpatient community mental health settings. She has administrative experience working in community psychology, not-for-profit settings, program development and grant writing. Her clinical experience includes individual, family, group and couple’s therapy, high risk clients, substance abuse treatment, trauma and crisis intervention. She has clinical experience working with urban American Indians, Arab Americans, Latino Americans, African Americans, Anglo Americans, Bosnian refugees, and political asylum seekers from Albania, Liberia, Ethiopia and Congo Zaire. Her interests include culturally relevant, tailored and appropriate interventions, increasing awareness of neocolonialism and multigenerational transmission of trauma, human rights, and developing culturally competent psychologists.

Course description: This one- year (two semesters) practicum provides supervised clinical field experience. In addition to the required hours working at the assigned training site, students enrolled in practicum meet weekly in a practicum seminar led by a core faculty member. The overall practicum experience includes assessment and intervention experience.

Course Pre-requisites: All practicum prerequisites as outlined in the training manual

Required Texts: None

Technology: Pentium III CPU/ Windows 98; 128MB RAM printer; Microsoft Office: Acrobat (full version); Microsoft Internet Explorer 5.5 (PC), 5.0 (MAC), or Netscape Navigator 4.08; Norton Antivirus.

Course length: 30 Weeks

Contact Hours: 37 Hours

Credit Value: 6.0

Program Outcomes: The Master’s Program in Clinical Psychology has been designed to educate and train students to enter a professional career as MA level practitioners. Argosy University, Chicago provides students an educational program with all the necessary theoretical and clinical elements that will allow them to be effective members of a mental health team. The program introduces students to basic clinical skills that integrate individual and group theoretical foundations of applied psychology into appropriate client interactions and intervention skills

In addition, the Program offers excellent preparation for those considering application to the Doctoral Program in Clinical Psychology.

Course Objectives: The general focus of this seminar will be to facilitate development of each participant's therapeutic intervention skills and therapeutic style. The seminar will provide each participant with opportunities to explore and discuss one's developing identity as a psychotherapist including case conceptualization, managing reactions to clients, setting appropriate boundaries for the therapy relationship and the therapy setting, areas of specific strengths and weaknesses, and the general issues, struggles, successes, etc., that one encounters at this point in one's training.

Specifically, emphasis will be placed on developing skills necessary to accomplish the following goals:

  1. develop and enhance personal/ professional skills used in creating a therapeutic alliance;
  2. establish a therapeutic alliance that builds a foundation for a broader and deeper clinical process.;
  3. enhance knowledge and application of assessment and therapeutic intervention skills;
  4. develop a capacity to recognize and work with the impact of relevant contextual factors including gender, race, ethnicity, sexual orientation on the client's experience of the therapeutic process;
  5. facilitate one's capacity for self-reflection and the ability to recognize the role of the interactional process on the course of therapy;
  6. understand the client conceptually in a cognitive-behavioral orientation and develop an appropriate treatment plan the integrates your understanding of the client and cognitive-behaviorally based interventions;
  1. develop a capacity to prepare relevant written clinical assessments that effectively integrate the various aspects of your client's presentation and that thoroughly describe the causes and maintaining factors of the client’s presenting issues; and,
  2. increase awareness of diversity issues (our own and that of others) as these influence and impact the clinical treatment process.

The overall focus of our listening process will be to attend to client communications. Together, we will attempt to understand the factors that contributed to the development and maintenance of the client’s presenting issues, as well as other factors that may not be directly stated by the client, but that are also limiting the client’s functioning in the world. Important areas of focus in our work together will include 1) the client's personal history and current experiences, and 2) the situational contexts that surround the treatment framework. On this foundation we can consider how best to formulate relevant, effective interpretations and interventions.

Instructional Contact Hours/Credit

Students can expect 15 hours of instructional engagement for every 1 semester credit hour of a course. Instructional engagement activities include lectures, presentations, discussions, group-work, and other activities that would normally occur during class time. Instructional engagement activities may occur in a face-to-face meeting, or in the eclassroom.

In addition to instructional engagement, students can expect to complete 30 hours of outside work for every 1 semester credit hour of a course. Outside work includes preparing for and completing readings and assignments. Such outside work includes, but is not limited to, all research associated with completing assignments, work with others to complete a group project, participation in tutorials, labs, simulations and other electronic activities that are not a part of the instructional engagement, as well as any activities related to preparation for instructional engagement.

At least an equivalent amount of work as required in the paragraph above shall be applied for other academic activities as established by the institution, including laboratory work, internships, practica, studio work, and other academic work leading to the award of credit hours.

Seminar format: The therapy seminar meets weekly for the fall and spring semesters and summer 1. The majority of class time will be used for the presentation and critique of the therapy tapes. There will be some didactic presentations and discussion on clinical interviewing and case conceptualization, treatment planning and intervention and ethical issues.

Attendance to the seminar is mandatory. In the instance of an unforeseen absence, the student should notify the instructor the day of the missed seminar meeting.If any student misses more than one seminar during the course of a semester, they will be required to make up that time at their own expense, or receive a grade of “No Credit”.

Participants will present audio tapes of a therapy session each semester for group discussion. Each group member will be asked to present his/her material twice during each semester, in non-consecutive weeks, on the dates assigned to each respective seminar participant. Please prepare a typed transcript of each session with copies to distribute to each member of our group. Although it may not always be feasible or desirable, you are requested (to try) to present the same client during both the Fall and Spring semesters so that the unfolding therapy process is available for review.

Assignments:

1. In order to facilitate preparation for the CEC, seminar participants will complete a written assignment in both the Fall and Spring semesters which will follow the complete Therapy CEC requirements. These written assignments will be due two (2) weeks following your case presentation in the seminar and will require you to analyze relevant clinical data following CEC category guidelines.

2.  Please include in your CEC analysis a written patient-therapist- patient interaction for which you have an idea about a more effective therapist response. Prepare this alternative intervention that conveys a more empathic or useful response than the one initially offered to your client. It is hoped that preparing such "armchair responses" will allow you to practice what you might have said or what you might say in the future, as your awareness of and attention to relevant communications and sensitivity to effective interventions continues to develop.

3.  In addition, each group member is required to provide 1 article that pertains to therapeutic interventions. These articles may be general in nature or they may be selected because they bear upon the particular treatment issues or personality characteristics of the client who you will be presenting. Please do not select topics that are already covered in the reserve readings. Please bring these articles to the seminar and distribute them the week before your presentation.

Advisement: An individual meeting will be scheduled with each seminar participant to discuss your experience of and progress within the seminar. In addition, we will take time to discuss such general advisement issues as registration, graduation or continuing education, and any other issues of interest to you.

Seminar Performance Criteria

Seminar participants will be expected to demonstrate:

  1. an ability to establish a therapeutic alliance, an ability to make a human (humane) connection with patients, to articulate your understanding of the individual's described experience, his/her presenting problems and treatment hopes/goals, and to validate the client’s experience;
  1. an understanding of one's impact on one's clients, including your reactions to your client and the client’s response to you;
  1. a working, flexible ability to explore with the client the antecedents and consequences of specific behaviors, and the link between client’s thoughts, actions, and emotions;
  1. an ability to make effective interpretations that are based solidly on material presented by the patient and cognitive-behavioral theory. Interpretations are expected to extend the range and depth of understanding the patient has about their own internal experiences and behaviors;
  1. an ability to review patient response to therapist interpretations and interventions with particular attention to how "successful" or "unsuccessful" such interpretations are;
  1. such basic therapeutic capacities as warmth, sensitivity to patient suffering, neutrality, empathy, and awareness of diversity issues in the therapy setting; and,
  1. participate in seminar discussions of each therapy session and offer insightful and sensitive feedback to the presenter as well as observations about the possible meanings of the clinical material presented.

CEC Requirements:

You may select a child, adolescent or adult client for your CEC tape. Please use a micro-cassette tape recording that is clear. DO NOT use a standard size tape or electronic/digital recorder, do not attempt to submit a burned CD or email electronically.There are many types of therapy sessions that both therapist and patient consider meaningful and successful. In some such sessions, the patient comes to some central insight or understanding in the absence of any current therapist interventions. You will need to obtain written consent to audiotape for the purpose of review for this seminar from the client. If the client is under the age of 18, the consent of both the parent and youth must be obtained in writing. If the client has a legal guardian, regardless of client age, consent must be obtained from the client and legal guardian in writing. It is highly recommended that you seek to obtain this consent well in advance of the request to tape in the event that the client and/or parent/legal guardian refuses and you need to ask another client. Additionally, it is your responsibility to discuss taping and written consent for taping requests with your site, be familiar with their policies and follow their protocol.

However, for the CEC it is essential that you select a tape for a session in which you can demonstrate your competence with respect to responding empathically, validating the client’s experiences, and formulating and understanding of the development and maintenance of the client’s difficulties, as well as your ability to formulate effective interventions. Although the cases you submit for the two practice CEC’s will be presented in our seminar first, be sure that for your final CEC you select a session hour on which you have not received supervision.

Additional specific guidelines with respect to CEC evaluation criteria will be distributed in the seminar. Please be sure to familiarize yourself with the CEC evaluation guidelines provided by the Department of Training. As an overview, sophisticated conceptual analysis of all relevant therapeutic interactions, articulate writing and excellent organization of ideas will distinguish the superior CEC. In this case, both the tape selected and the written assessment of the clinical hour will demonstrate your mastery of the skills central to meaningful psychotherapy. If the analysis is well-done but the tape selected does not demonstrate your skills with respect to listening and interpreting client communications, you will be asked to Revise your CEC and submit a second tape with relevant written analysis.

NOTE: All CEC tapes submitted must be micro-recorder size tapes. Standard size tapes, digital recordings or burned CD’s will NOT be accepted. Tapes may NOT be left in the instructor’s mailbox, due to security issues.

If your tape demonstrates adequate treatment skills, but the written assessment merits additional development, you will be asked to Revise the written portion of the CEC. If the tape and assessment submitted indicate inadequate mastery of the skills emphasized within the seminar, you may be asked to Resubmit both portions of the CEC. If skills demonstrated suggest significantly less than adequate mastery of the seminar material, a participant could receive a non-passing grade. In such an instance, the student may be required to do remedial therapy seminar work. Any intervention will be planned with the Training Department.

Calendar

The first week of each semester may be spent in introductory and administrative matters. Subsequently, students will present tapes two times per semester. One hour of seminar time will be used for case presentation and discussion. Fifteen minutes will typically be set aside for updates/closure on previous cases, discussion of articles, questions, concerns, or other pressing matters. Seminar does not meet during finals week. Seminar will meet twice during the Summer 1 session, dates TBA.

Licensure

Licensure requirements for masters and doctoral level clinicians vary from state to state. Licensure offices often request to see copies of course syllabi to verify eligibility. Students are urged to keep all of their syllabi from graduate school courses in case they are needed for licensure.

Course Schedule:

Week / Topic / Readings / Assignment
1 / Introductions; Course Overview
2 / Utilizing Supervision
3 / Establishing Rapport / Student Case Presentation:
4 / Maintaining Safety / Student Case Presentation:
5 / Substance Abuse Issues / Student Case Presentation:
6 / Self-Care Issues / Student Case Presentation:
7 / Treatment Planning / Student Case Presentation:
8 / Evidence Based Practices / Student Case Presentation:
9 / Working with Challenging Clients / Student Case Presentation:
10 / Identifying Appropriate Level of Care / Student Case Presentation:
11 / Documentation and Due Diligence / Student Case Presentation:
12 / Ethical Considerations
13 / Diversity Considerations / Student Case Presentation:
14
15 / NO CLASS—FINALS WEEK

Required Readings: