Georgia has a psychology doctoral program for you, regardless of whether you want to become a clinical psychologist, a research psychologist, a developmental psychologist, or something in between. The state’s large network of public and private universities offers many options, both in terms of the specialization you pursue and the type of degree you get—either a Ph.D. or a PsyD.
One of the other important aspects of choosing a psychology doctoral program in Georgia is the location of the school’s campus. These programs all require significant field-based learning; this being the case, choosing a school based in part on proximity to internship sites could be important.
The programs discussed below are popular options for continuing your education. Read each description thoroughly and compare these programs based on their features. Doing so will help you discover which program is best for your future.
Psychology PhD and PsyD Programs in Georgia
Listed below are some of the popular schools offering psychology PhD and PsyD programs in Georgia:
- University of Georgia
- Georgia State University
- Mercer University
- Georgia Southern University
- National University
- The Chicago School
- Grand Canyon University
- University of Arizona Global Campus
To find out how we select colleges and universities, please click here.
University of Georgia
Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology
The Clinical Psychology Ph.D. program at the University of Georgia is based on the clinical science model. This means your training comes from an evidence-based approach—you’ll learn about the science of psychology and how to apply it in your everyday practice of clinical psychology.
This program, which is accredited by the American Psychological Association (APA) and the Psychological Clinical Science Accreditation System (PCSAS), requires at least five years of on-campus work to complete. During your time in the program, you’ll achieve specific benchmarks that prepare you to be a competent clinical psychologist. These benchmarks include the following:
- Learn how to use psychology as a tool of inquiry.
- Acquire the theoretical understanding and research competence needed to provide effective clinical services.
- Gain an understanding of psychology as an integrated and applied science.
- Develop culturally competent skills and recognize the increasingly diverse communities that the helping professions serve.
- Develop academic and research skills alongside the clinical and applied skills needed to be a practicing psychologist.
You’ll meet these standards by completing the required coursework, research, and field experiences in the program. By and large, your focus for the first year or two of the program will be on finishing foundational coursework. These classes, like Professional Issues in Psychology, Psychological Research Methods, and History and Systems of Psychology, offer a broad overview of crucial psychology topics. Further courses help you round out your understanding of clinical psychology and may include the following:
- Clinical Psychopathology
- Psychological Assessment
- Group Therapy
- Biological Bases of Behavior
- Developmental Psychology
In amongst this coursework, you’ll participate in mentored research activities with program faculty. Typically, you choose the area you wish to research and partner with a faculty member whose research interests align with yours. Regarding the specific research activities you’ll complete, you might first assist your mentor professor with their research, then, as time goes on and you gain more skills, begin original research of your own. The following are resources on the Georgia campus where you can complete research activities:
- The Owens Institute for Behavioral Research
- The Biomedical and Translation Sciences Institute
- The Bio-Imaging Research Center
- The Institute of Gerontology
Another key aspect of this program is an emphasis on teaching. You’ll take teaching-related courses to learn how to effectively disseminate information to younger students, particularly those taking undergraduate psychology courses. Your teaching courses don’t just focus on content, though; instead, you’ll learn how to deliver lessons, design curricula, and be fair and equitable in grading procedures.
Perhaps the most significant component of this program, though, is the field-based learning. You’ll complete several practicum experiences and a year-long internship at an external site. During the practica and internship, you’ll acquire all the skills and competencies needed to be an effective psychologist.
On the one hand, you’ll learn how to assess and diagnose clients and develop a treatment plan to address their specific needs. On the other hand, you’ll also learn about professional and ethical issues to be aware of when working with vulnerable client populations.
Clinical opportunities abound at the University of Georgia. The program’s teaching clinic, the Psychology Clinic, is an on-campus option for acquiring practicum and internship hours. You might also acquire clinical hours in any number of partner organizations in the community, such as hospitals, residential treatment centers, community mental health clinics, and the like.
To apply, you must first meet the following requirements:
- Have a bachelor’s degree from an accredited institution.
- Provide unofficial transcripts from every college or university you’ve attended.
- Provide three letters of recommendation from references who are familiar with your professional and academic accomplishments.
- Submit a resume or curriculum vitae.
- Provide a 500 to 1000-word statement in which you discuss your professional and academic goals and how your life experiences have prepared you for the rigors of doctoral studies.
You may also consider submitting paper presentations, a copy of your master’s thesis, or other evidence of professional or academic work.
Georgia State University
Ph.D in Clinical Psychology
Georgia State’s Ph.D in Clinical Psychology offers a general concentration that allows you to pursue a variety of clinical-based careers. The program, which has been APA accredited since 1973, requires six to seven years to complete and follows the scientist-practitioner model of training. This type of training emphasizes the importance of understanding psychology as a science as much as its application as an applied science.
The curriculum is highly diverse and provides training in many areas of psychology. You’ll begin by completing the core curriculum, which includes a sequence of five essential psychology classes:
- Psychological Research Statistics I
- Psychological Research Statistics II
- Scientific and Professional Ethics in Psychology
- History of Psychology
- Research Methods in Psychology
In addition to these foundational classes, you must complete directed research. You begin directed research in your first semester in the program and continue conducting research throughout your tenure. You might complete a master’s thesis, a doctoral dissertation, and other independent research. Likewise, you are required to present your research at professional meetings and in relevant journals.
As you progress through the program and begin working through clinical coursework, you’ll be asked to complete relevant directed readings. These empirical works should be related to your desired specialty within clinical psychology and provide breadth and depth to your traditional coursework and other studies.
As a clinical psychology student, you must also complete a set of required clinical-focused courses. These classes, which include Foundations of Clinical Psychology, Assessment, and Therapy, give you deeper insights into the mechanisms of providing clinical psychology services to clients. To that end, you must also take classes like the following:
- Diversity Issues in Clinical Psychology
- Psychopathology
- Supervision, Consultation, and Evaluation
Furthermore, two clinical psychology electives are needed to finish this portion of your training. The program offers numerous options ranging from Topics in Clinical Neuropsychology to Statistics III to Introduction to Community Psychology.
A significant portion of your training is supervised clinical work. In fact, you must complete at least 31 credits of supervised clinical experiences over the course of numerous practicum courses. These experiences provide you with the necessary training to gain confidence in your skills as a clinician prior to the internship year.
During the practicum experiences, you must provide direct clinical services to clients. You’ll have an onsite supervisor who will help guide your development, provide feedback, and assist you with professional-related issues, too. You must complete specific training during the practicum as well. This training focuses on areas such as assessment, supervision, psychotherapy, and specialized skills.
The final component of this program is a year-long clinical internship. During the internship, you’ll complete many different tasks as a pre-service psychologist, including mastery of intake procedures, client assessment, and diagnosis. You’ll also get experience in case consultation, supervision, and developing effective interventions for clients based on their unique needs. All told, you must accumulate a minimum of 2,000 hours of clinical work during the internship.
You can apply online if this program seems like a good fit for your needs. The criteria for admission are as follows:
- Have a bachelor’s degree from an accredited college or university.
- Provide official transcripts from every college or university you’ve attended.
- Submit a statement of purpose.
- Submit a curriculum vitae or resume.
- Provide three letters of recommendation.
- Provide a writing sample.
Mercer University
PsyD in Clinical Psychology
At Mercer University, you can pursue a PsyD in Clinical Psychology that takes just five years to complete. Once you finish the program, you’ll be eligible for licensure as a practicing clinical psychologist in the state of Georgia. This APA-accredited program focuses specifically on health psychology and its application in interdisciplinary healthcare settings. As such, you have the option of adding a Master of Public Health to your PsyD, if you wish.
Year one of this program focuses on completing core coursework in areas like Psychometric Theory and Assessment, Psychopathology, and Health Psychology. Furthermore, you’ll take Cognitive Assessment, Research Design, and Statistical Methods. Other year-one courses cover the following topics:
- Clinical Interviewing
- Evidence-Based Assessment and Therapy
- Cognitive and Affective Processes
- Social Psychology and Social Neuroscience
- Professional Values
Once in the program’s second year, your coursework focuses on additional topics of study that help you better understand psychology as a science. For example, you’ll take Biological Bases of Behavior, which examines how our behavior as humans is influenced, at least in part, by activity in the brain. You’ll learn about the role of neurotransmitters, hormones, genetics, and other biological processes in affecting what we think and feel.
Also in year two, you’ll start completing practicum experiences. In fact, you’ll have a practicum in each of the three semesters of year two; the same follows for years three and four. These practicum experiences are invaluable for helping you navigate the complexities of applying your classroom learning in a real-world environment. Fortunately, each practicum is supervised in a highly supportive clinical setting. You’ll have opportunities to shadow practicing psychologists, ask questions, practice your skills, and get feedback from your supervisor, too.
During the program’s third and fourth years, the number of classes you take begins to diminish in favor of making more room for research and clinical experiences. For example, the third year’s curriculum includes the following classes:
- Psychopharmacology
- Evidence-Based Assessment and Therapy III
- Neuropsychological Assessment
- Child Psychopathology
- History and Systems of Psychology
The program’s fourth year has even fewer course requirements: Child and Family Behavior Therapy and Psycho-oncology are the only courses. Otherwise, you’ll concentrate on three practicum experiences and your clinical dissertation.
Year five of the program is when you’ll finish your clinical dissertation—an intense, detailed research project that requires years of work and an oral defense to be successful. At the same time, you’ll begin your year-long clinical internship at an approved off-site location.
During the 2,000-hour internship, you’ll apply what you’ve learned in class and in your practicum placements to provide comprehensive clinical psychology services to clients. The internship is supervised, so you’ll have an onsite mentor to guide you through the intricacies of becoming an independent psychologist. You’re also required to complete supervisory hours with the faculty and your classmates.
The requirements for admission are as follows:
- Have an undergraduate degree from an accredited college or university. Though the degree doesn’t have to be in psychology, you must have at least 12 credits of psychology coursework on your transcript.
- Have a 3.0 cumulative undergraduate GPA or higher.
- Provide a personal statement in which you discuss your educational and career goals.
- Provide a current resume or curriculum vitae.
- Submit three letters of recommendation from references who have worked with you in research, professional, or academic settings.
- Participate in a personal interview with program faculty, if necessary.
Georgia Southern University
PsyD in Clinical Psychology
Yet another doctoral program you might consider is the PsyD from Georgia Southern University. This program, which requires a minimum of 114 credits to graduate, focuses on a breadth of psychology topics. You’ll study the theoretical underpinnings of clinical practice, learn how to conduct psychological assessments, and develop a better understanding of multicultural issues in this field as well.
But the curriculum of this APA-accredited program is much broader and more detailed than what’s outlined above, though. For example, you’ll get complete training in psychotherapy and consultation. Your training in these and other areas of practice is sequential and graduates in complexity as you progress through the curriculum.
You’ll begin your studies with foundational courses in psychotherapy and assessment. For example, you’ll take Psychotherapy Skills I, II, and III—a three-part sequence of classes that offers a chance to apply major therapy systems in practice. You’ll explore individual theories of psychology, learn how to integrate them, and get feedback on your ability to apply existentialism, post-modern, and humanistic theories in supervised practice.
The assessment portion of the program includes three classes:
- Assessment I: Psychometric Theory
- Assessment II: Intellectual Assessment
- Assessment III: Personality Assessment
In each course, you’ll focus on the theoretical bases of assessment while also exploring topics like test development and construction, data analysis, and legal issues in testing, to name a few. Likewise, you’ll learn how to conduct assessments for specific settings, such as conducting cognitive assessments with children, evaluating an adult’s unique personality characteristics, and determining if a personality disorder might be present.
Six credits of biology-related courses are required, too. Physiological Psychology focuses on the biological bases of human behavior. Meanwhile, Psychopharmacology examines the use of drug therapies to treat psychological disorders. You’ll build on your understanding of the relationship between biology and behavior by taking Affective and Cognitive Psychology, which analyzes historical and contemporary theories of cognitive psychology.
Other key courses you’re required to take include the following:
- Research Design
- Advanced Developmental Psychology
- Ethics and Professional Issues
- Advanced Social Psychology
- Diversity Issues in Psychology
A minimum of 17 credits (and as many as 27 credits) are required for dissertation research. You’ll work closely with faculty mentors to develop your dissertation proposal and carry out your research. You’ll have a supervising chair and a dissertation committee who follow your work, provide feedback, and sit for your dissertation defense as well.
Another 12-15 credits of practicum experience are needed to complete this program. These credits are acquired in two practicums, a combined practicum seminar, and a rural practicum focusing on providing psychological services to people in underserved areas.
Beyond that, you’ll complete a three-part pre-doctoral internship, during which time you’ll work full-time as a clinical psychologist in a supervised setting. During that time, you must acquire at least 2,000 hours of client contact time in the context of individual, couples, group, or family therapy.
To apply, you must meet the following requirements:
- Have a bachelor’s degree from an accredited institution. The degree must indicate that you’ve taken courses in two or more of the following:
- Personality Psychology
- Social Psychology
- Developmental Psychology
- Learning or Cognitive Psychology
- Health Psychology
- Tests and Measurements
- Theories of Psychotherapy
- Psychology of Substance Abuse
- Have a cumulative undergraduate GPA of 3.3 or higher, including grades of B or higher in the following courses: psychological statistics, abnormal psychology, and research design.
- Submit three letters of recommendation from former or current employers or professors.
- Provide a written statement of your professional goals.
- Provide a current resume or curriculum vitae.
- Participate in a faculty interview.
You can also choose to submit a writing sample to highlight your writing skills as they pertain to psychological research and academic writing more generally.
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