The clinical faculty is concerned that students learn very early in the program that adequate interventions are dependent upon a thorough grounding in assessment and case-conceptualization. Accordingly, during their first year, students are required to take a course in beginning interviewing skills, along with a sequence of two semesters of more formal assessment, including intelligence testing and an assessment course stressing use of a variety of objective tests and beginning report-writing skills. A third course taken in the second year covers projective testing and more advanced integration of test results and report-writing. These courses, in conjunction with practicum work, allow for a melding of skills in assessment and clinical intervention, prior to direct clinical therapeutic contact. Students then progress into intervention and clinical practice, having received a thorough basis in clinical assessment, psychopathology, and preliminary micro-counseling skills.

Students obtain the bulk of their clinical training at the Clinical Psychology Center (CPC). At the beginning of their second year, students become part of a Clinical Team (CT) at the CPC. These teams are comprised of clinical graduate students of various year levels and a faculty supervisor. As students progress through the program, they assume increasing responsibility for the care of the clients they see while continuing to receive both individual and group supervision. As the CT serves as one of the primary settings for the integration of science and practice, students on the team are encouraged to develop clear case conceptualizations which lead to the application of a clearly delineated treatment plan. In addition, CT supervisors encourage the active utilization of knowledge developed through academic course work and research in understanding and assisting their clients. Finally, the CT serves as an additional forum for the discussion of ethical standards and current professional issues. The field of mental health care continues to change at a rapid pace and we believe that students should remain abreast of these issues so as to be better prepared for employment in academic, medical, or private practice settings.

Our training includes instruction and educational experience in working with diverse human backgrounds, lifestyles, and experiences. We are also training our students to be able to adapt to and contribute to a rapidly changing service-delivery environment in mental health and human service arenas. We want our students to be prepared to apply their training in psychological science to the planning and implementation of service-delivery programs, administration, and evaluation of programs, and to work comfortably and effectively within larger mental health, planning, and governmental systems. Our students should be able to evaluate and guide as well as plan programs and serve as agents of larger institutional change.

We attempt to provide students with exposure to as many faculty members as possible; students take practica from a variety of supervisors, mainly from within the program and sometimes drawn form the community, and they are thus exposed to a range of theoretical and applied points of view. A variety of schools of thought are currently represented among the faculty, including Cognitive-Behavioral, Psychodynamic, Emotion-Focused, Interpersonal and Functional Analytic psychotherapy, Family Systems.

• Clinic assistantship to the director of Clinical Psychology Center
  
• Confederated Salish-Kootenai Tribes Mental Health Center at St. Ignatious
  
• Counseling and Psychological Services at the University of Montana
  
• Missoula Indian Center
  
• Montana State Prison at Deer Lodge
  
• Montana State Psychiatric Hospital at Warm Springs
  
• Neuropsychological assessment at the Western Montana Clinic
  
• Partnership Health Care Center (a non-profit community health center offering
  
• services for low income residents)
  
• Summer externships at various tribal health centers in Montana and Wyoming
  
• Neuropsychological assessment at Montana Psychological Medicine