For the first time at Oregon State University, clinical psychology Ph.D. students are getting real-world experience treating patients at the new Psychology Training Clinic, as they meet with OSU student clients on campus under close supervision by licensed psychologists.
The clinic also means extra resources for students seeking mental health care at OSU, as the doctoral students receive referrals from OSU Counseling and Psychological Services. Next year, the clinic will open to the broader Corvallis community.
“The feedback from the supervisors is that they’re doing great. The students are right where they need to be in terms of competency,” said clinical director Bridget Klest. “For the students, it’s a little anxiety-provoking at first, but getting in the room, seeing clients and realizing ‘I can actually do this’ helps a lot with managing the anxiety.”
OSU’s clinical psychology Ph.D. program started in fall 2024 and currently has 12 students. The six second-year students have one student client each for now, and the clinic will slowly add more as practitioners gain experience.
Klest is working closely with CAPS to select OSU student clients who are comfortable receiving care from doctoral students and whose reasons for seeking care align with what the psychology clinic can provide. Where CAPS therapy services are more short-term and solutions-based, the psychology clinic offers more long-term, open-ended counseling.
Clients must also be comfortable with their sessions being observed and recorded via video feed for the licensed supervisors to watch in real time and discuss later with the doctoral students. So far, Klest said, student clients have been unfazed by the recording aspect, and both clients and student practitioners seem to forget the cameras are there once sessions get underway.
The clinic is housed in a few office spaces in Snell Hall. Clients meet one-on-one with doctoral student psychologists, while the supervising psychologist and other doctoral students observe via video in another room. Afterward, doctoral students watch their own sessions and discuss them with their supervisor and peers. Supervisors can even communicate via Teams chat to the doctoral students in real time during a session if there’s something urgent that needs to be addressed with a client.
OSU’s model is fairly unique among graduate psychology programs, where students often see clients without anyone watching and then meet for just an hour a week to discuss multiple sessions with their supervisor. That was Klest’s own experience in graduate school, and she said it leaves potential for important things to get missed.
“You don’t learn as quickly that way. You don’t get immediate feedback,” she said. “We’ve known for decades from the science of learning that feedback is really important for learning of any kind. So we’re loading the feedback really heavily on this front end so they can become more competent more quickly.”
Meeting with her clinical supervisor six hours a week and receiving personalized feedback on every session has been the most exciting part of the program for second-year Ph.D. student Cassie Grinstead.
“At the end of a session, I’m meeting with this licensed psychologist who says, ‘Here’s things you did really well; here’s things you can improve; what did you think of their psychopathology and how are you going to treat them?’” she said. “There is so much hands-on feedback that I have since learned is really unique. It’s a pleasant surprise.”
Watching her classmates’ sessions, talking through cases and developing treatment plans help Grinstead feel like the years of training and education she’s gone through are finally paying off, she said.
“I’m noticing areas where I’m lacking, and I’m ready to tackle that challenge, improve and show up better for my clients. I feel really excited about it — I love going to the clinic,” she said. “Seeing clients was my ‘I made it’ moment. I’m doing what I wanted to do for so long, and I actually enjoy it. I feel myself getting better.”
By Molly Rosbach
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