Samantha Gojcaj ’30PsyD never thought she would look forward to Mondays. But that was before she entered Bryant’s Doctor of Clinical Psychology (Psy.D.) program and got to start her week with Bryant’s “Clinical Skills I” course.
For Gojcaj, the three-hour gathering is an opportunity to learn new skills that she can leverage in her pre-practicum placement at Emory Recovery Center, an addiction rehabilitation center in Attleboro, Massachusetts. The first-year graduate student began her placement shadowing mental health workers in September and has since advanced to facilitating group therapy sessions on her own twice a week.
“I feel like I’ve been getting the experience I was hoping for. I’ve already learned so much,” says Gojcaj, who’s finding her therapy style and type of therapist she wants to be.
Bryant’s “Clinical Skills I” course introduces graduate students to foundational counseling skills — such as learning how to be in the space with a client, the use of open-ended questions, replying with reflective responses, and considering proxemics. This in-class groundwork is combined with a pre-practicum opportunity where students are in the community shadowing clinicians, engaging in co-therapy, and taking on more autonomous tasks. Taught by Lecturer and Director of Clinical Training Lindsay Amper, Ph.D., and School of Health and Behavioral Sciences Instructor Caroline Fulton, Psy.D., NCSP, the course is positioning students to become effective, compassionate leaders in the mental health space.
Step stones for success
It’s a Monday afternoon in September and the Psy.D. program’s inaugural cohort of 21 students stand in the middle of their classroom playing a game of telephone. Unlike the classic version, students go around the circle passing along the same emotion to the person to their right. Everyone closes their eyes and waits for a tap on the shoulder where they are tasked with passing along the non-verbal form of communication. Once the last person has seen the emotion, Amper asks students to say what they believe was being represented.
Excitement. Surprise. Overjoyed.
The actual emotion? Exhilarated.
“This game indicates that we all have different interpretations of what people are trying to communicate to us,” Amper says. “They might not even be conscious that they're communicating something, but it’s coming through their body language and facial expression. Part of our job as therapists is to interpret this.”
Amper goes on to explain the importance of developing a strong emotional vocabulary to name things that might be going on in a space. Emphasizing the effectiveness of silence in a therapy room, Amper has students practice made-up scenarios in the space’s eight role playing rooms.
RELATED ARTICLE: How is AI reshaping cognitive psychology? Bryant expert explains
For Mackenzie Dickman ’30PsyD, role playing has aided her at her pre-practicum site, AdCare Rhode Island, an inpatient substance use facility. Amper and Fulton either provide common examples that they’ve seen throughout their clinical careers, or students develop their own examples. Practice rounds range from five to ten minutes with one person acting as a client, another as a therapist, and a third as an observer who takes notes and provides feedback.
“It's made me more comfortable talking with clients and more comfortable with my classmates because we're making mistakes in front of each other but learning so much from them as well,” says Dickman.
When she’s not in the classroom, Dickman is refining her skills further through the platform Skillsetter. Pre-recorded clients explain a situation they’re going through, and Psy.D. students record their responses.
“For someone who didn’t come in with a ton of experience, being able to rerecord and think through it more deeply has helped me in my in-the-moment responses,” Dickman says, noting that Amper and Fulton provide feedback.
Value of experiential learning
Graduate students spend 10 to 15 hours each week at their pre-practicum location from September through May. Two days a week Kathleen Morgan ’30PsyD can be found at CHILD, Inc., where she provides emotional and behavioral therapeutic support to children enrolled in Head Start preschool classrooms.
“I’ve worked closely with the organization’s CEO and licensed independent social worker, observing and assisting in child-centered play therapy sessions. Additionally, I support students directly in their classrooms, offering individualized attention and guidance to children with higher levels of need,” notes Morgan.
When students were accepted into the Psy.D. program, Amper worked with everyone individually to determine their areas of interest and locate placements that would extend their current skills. The placement comes with one project that spans the entire academic year. Graduate students interview site supervisors to gain a sense of gaps that exist within the organization and, based on that information, conduct research and develop solutions to meet their site's needs.
“We are fortunate to have students in a wide array of sites, allowing them to learn about systems of care and share their learning with one another,” says Fulton. “Clinical work is nuanced, and there are a variety of empirically supported approaches to different situations. It’s important to watch and practice interventions delivered in the real world to become proficient in responding to client needs.”
As students encounter new situations, whether it be working with clients for the first time or navigating difficult situations, the last hour of Monday’s class is spent discussing what went well, what didn’t go well, and troubleshooting ethical dilemmas.
“The most beneficial aspect has been the accessibility and consistency of support,” Morgan says. “Any initial anxiety I had about entering the field quickly dissolved because of the confidence others had in me which, in turn, has allowed me to build confidence in myself. This foundation of support has been crucial in strengthening my skills and identity as a developing clinician.”
Shaping tomorrow’s leaders today
Due to how demanding graduate programs can be, self-care has been integrated into Bryant’s Psy.D. program. Students start their “Clinical Skills I” course with a mindfulness exercise each week, have access to a meditation room in the Psychology Research Center in their free time, and make self-care a practice in their day-to-day lives. For Morgan, this includes continuing to play the piano and sing, and, for Gojcaj, Bryant’s self-care emphasis had stood out from the other Psy.D. programs she was considering.
While this is only the beginning of their five-year journey, Amper notes that the biggest emphasis in their introductory course is the importance of understanding oneself.
“We’re doing a lot of work in terms of exploring who you are and what you bring to the table, so that when you are in the space with a client, you are aware of your own stuff so that doesn't interfere with therapeutic progress,” Amper says.
Fulton emphasizes this and stresses the importance of students developing clinical, relational, and critical thinking.
“This involves learning to integrate what is happening in the moment as with a big picture understanding of the client and situation,” Fulton says. “Students will ideally leave the course able to consider both individual and systemic factors that might make one response better than another, and with enough practice to begin to do this in their own clinical interactions.”