§ 32-2071 — Qualifications of applicants; education; training

A. An applicant for licensure shall have a doctoral degree from an institution of higher education in clinical or counseling psychology, school or educational psychology or any other subject area in applied psychology acceptable to the board and shall have completed a doctoral program in psychology from an educational institution that has:

1. Been accredited by one of the following regional accrediting agencies at the time of the applicant's graduation:

(a) The New England association of schools and colleges.

(b) The middle states association of colleges and schools.

(c) The north central association of colleges and schools.

(d) The northwest association of schools and colleges.

(e) The southern association of colleges and schools.

(f) The western association of schools and colleges.

2. A program that is identified and labeled as a psychology program and that stands as a recognized, coherent organizational entity within the institution with clearly identified entry and exit criteria for graduate students in the program.

3. An identifiable psychology faculty in the area of health service delivery and a psychologist responsible for the program.

4. A core program that requires each student to demonstrate competence by passing suitable comprehensive examinations or by successfully completing at least three or more graduate semester hours, five or more quarter hours or six or more trimester hours or by other suitable means in the following content areas:

(a) Scientific and professional ethics and standards in psychology.

(b) Research, which may include design, methodology, statistics and psychometrics.

(c) The biological basis of behavior, which may include physiological psychology, comparative psychology, neuropsychology, sensation and perception and psychopharmacology.

(d) The cognitive-affective basis of behavior, which may include learning, thinking, motivation and emotion.

(e) The social basis of behavior, which may include social psychology, group processes, cultural diversity and organizational and systems theory.

(f) Individual differences, which may include personality theory, human development and abnormal psychology.

(g) Assessment, which includes instruction in interviewing and administering, scoring and interpreting psychological test batteries to diagnose cognitive abilities and personality functioning.

(h) Treatment modalities, which include instruction in the theory and application of a diverse range of psychological interventions to treat mental, emotional, psychological and behavioral disorders.

5. A psychology program that leads to a doctoral degree requiring at least the equivalent of three full-time academic years of graduate study, two years of which are at the institution from which the doctoral degree is granted.

6. A requirement that the student must successfully defend a dissertation, the content of which is primarily psychological, or an equivalent project acceptable to the board.

7. Official transcripts that have been prepared solely by the institution and not by the student and, except for manifest clerical errors or grade changes, have not been altered by the institution after the student's graduation.

8. Given the student credit only for coursework that is listed on its official transcripts and that is obtained only at regionally accredited educational institutions as listed in paragraph 1 of this subsection and does not give credit for continuing education experiences or courses.

B. If the institution is located outside the United States, the applicant shall demonstrate that the program meets the requirements of subsection A, paragraphs 2 through 7 and subsections C through M of this section.

C. The applicant shall complete relevant didactic courses of the program required under subsection A, paragraph 4 of this section before starting the supervised professional experiences as described pursuant to subsection F of this section.

D. Each applicant for licensure shall obtain three thousand hours of supervised professional work experiences. The applicant shall demonstrate clearly how the applicant met this requirement. The applicant shall obtain a minimum of one thousand five hundred hours through an internship as described in subsection F of this section. The applicant shall obtain the remaining one thousand five hundred hours through any combination of the following:

1. Supervised preinternship professional experiences as described in subsection E of this section.

2. Additional internship hours as described in subsection F of this section.

3. Supervised postdoctoral experiences as described in subsection G of this section.

E. If the applicant chooses to include up to one thousand five hundred hours of supervised preinternship professional experience to satisfy a portion of the three thousand hours of supervised professional experience, the following requirements must be met:

1. The applicant's supervised preinternship professional experiences shall reflect a faculty directed, organized, sequential series of supervised experiences of increasing complexity that follows appropriate academic coursework and that prepares the applicant for an internship.

2. The applicant's supervised preinternship professional experiences shall follow appropriate academic preparation. There must be a written training plan between the student and the graduate training program. The training plan for each supervised preinternship professional experience training site must designate an allotment of time for each training activity and must ensure the quality, breadth and depth of training experience by specifying goals and objectives of the supervised preinternship professional experience, the methods of evaluation of the student and supervisory experiences. If supervision is to be completed by qualified site supervisors at external sites, their approval must be included in the plan.

3. More than one part-time supervised preinternship professional experience placement of appropriate scope and complexity over the course of the graduate training may be combined to satisfy the one thousand five hundred hours of supervised preinternship professional experiences.

4. Every twenty hours of supervised preinternship professional experience must include the following:

(a) At least fifty percent of the supervised preinternship professional experiences must be in psychological service-related activities. Psychological service-related activities may include treatment, assessment, interviews, report writing, case presentations, seminars on applied issues providing cotherapy, group supervision and consultations.

(b) At least twenty-five percent of the supervised preinternship professional experiences must be devoted to face-to-face patient-client contact.

(c) At least one hour per week of regularly scheduled contemporaneous in-person individual supervision per twenty hours of supervised preinternship professional experience that addresses the direct psychological services provided by the student.

(d) At least two hours of regularly scheduled contemporaneous supervision per twenty hours of supervised preinternship professional experience that addresses the direct psychological services provided by the student. At least fifty percent of the supervision during the total supervised preinternship professional experience shall be provided through contemporaneous in-person individual supervision. Not more than fifty percent shall be through in-person group supervision. At least seventy-five percent of the supervision shall be by a psychologist who is licensed or certified to practice psychology at the independent level by a licensing jurisdiction of the United States or Canada and who is designated by the academic program. Not more than twenty-five percent of the supervision shall be by a licensed mental health professional who is licensed or certified by a licensing jurisdiction of the United States or Canada, a psychology intern currently under the supervision of a licensed psychologist or an individual completing a postdoctoral supervised experience currently under the supervision of a licensed psychologist.

5. The applicant must provide to the board the written training plan developed by the applicant's program and documentation of the total hours accrued by the applicant during the supervised preinternship professional experience, including the number of face-to-face patient-client contact hours and the amount of supervision and qualifications of the supervisors for the entire supervised preinternship professional experiences. Documentation must include an acknowledgement that ethics training was included throughout the supervised preinternship professional experience.

6. Supervised professional preinternship experiences must be completed within seventy-two months.

F. The applicant shall have one thousand five hundred hours of supervised professional experience, which shall be either an internship that is approved by the American psychological association committee on accreditation, an internship that is a member of the association of psychology postdoctoral and internship centers or an organized training program that is designed to provide the trainee with a planned, programmed sequence of training experience, the focus and purpose of which are to ensure breadth and quality of training, and that meets the following requirements:

1. The training program has a clearly designated staff psychologist who is responsible for the integrity and quality of the training and who is licensed or certified to practice psychology at the independent level by any licensing jurisdiction of the United States or Canada in which the program exists.

2. The training program provides at least two psychologists on staff as supervisors, at least one of whom is licensed or certified to practice psychology at the independent level by a licensing jurisdiction of the United States or Canada in which the program exists and at least one of whom is directly available to the trainee in case of emergency.

3. Supervision is provided by the person who carries clinical responsibility for the cases being supervised. At least half of the training supervision shall be provided by one or more psychologists.

4. Training includes a range of assessment, consultation and treatment activities conducted directly with clients or patients.

5. A minimum of twenty-five percent of a trainee's supervised professional experience hours is in direct client or patient contact.

6. Training includes regular in-person, individual supervision conducted on a contemporaneous basis, with a minimum of one hour of in-person, individual supervision for each twenty hours of experience and with the specific intent of dealing with psychological services rendered directly by the trainee and at least two additional hours per week in other learning activities. The supervisor shall ensure that the telepractice supervision is conducted using secure, confidential real-time visual telecommunication.

7. The training program includes interaction with other psychology trainees.

8. Trainees have a title that designates their trainee status.

9. The applicant provides from the training organization a written statement that describes the goals and content of the training program and documents that clear expectations existed for the breadth, depth and quality and quantity of a trainee's work at the time of the supervised professional experience.

10. The supervised professional experience is completed within twenty-four consecutive months.

G. Not more than one thousand five hundred hours of supervised professional experience shall be postdoctoral and may start on written certification by the applicant's education program that the applicant has satisfied all requirements for the doctoral degree and on written certification that the applicant has completed an appropriate supervised professional experience as required in subsection F of this section. The applicant may complete more than one thousand five hundred hours of a supervised postdoctoral experience, but not more than one thousand five hundred hours may count towards the requirements of this subsection. The one thousand five hundred hours of supervised professional experience shall meet the following requirements:

1. Supervision is conducted by a psychologist who is licensed or certified to practice psychology at the independent level in any licensing jurisdiction of the United States or Canada in which the supervision occurs or by a psychologist who is on full-time active duty in the United States armed services and who is licensed or certified by a board of psychologist examiners in a United States jurisdiction, who has been licensed or certified for at least two years and who is competent in the areas of professional practice in which the supervisee is receiving supervised professional experience.

2. The supervisor takes full legal responsibility for the welfare of the client or patient as well as the diagnosis, intervention and outcome of the intervention and takes reasonable steps to ensure that clients or patients are informed of the supervisee's training and status and that clients or patients may meet with the supervisor at the client's or patient's request.

3. The supervisor or the appropriate custodian of records is responsible for ensuring that adequate records of client or patient contacts are maintained and that the client or patient is informed that the source of access to this information in the future is the supervisor.

4. The supervisor is fully available for consultation in the event of an emergency and provides emergency consultation coverage for the supervisee.

5. Regular in-person, individual supervision is conducted on a contemporaneous basis, with a minimum of one hour of in-person, individual supervision for each twenty hours of supervised professional experience. At least forty percent of the supervisee's time shall be in direct contact with clients or patients. The supervisor shall ensure that the telepractice supervision is conducted using secure, confidential real-time visual telecommunication technology.

6. The supervised professional experience as described in this subsection is completed within thirty-six consecutive months.

7. The applicant provides from the training organization a written training plan that describes the goals and content of the training experience and documents that clear expectations existed for the breadth, depth and quality and quantity of a trainee's work at the time of the supervised professional experience.

H. In meeting the supervised preinternship professional experience as described in subsection E of this section and the supervised professional experience as described in subsections F and G of this section, an applicant shall not receive credit for more than forty hours of experience per week.

I. An applicant who does not satisfy the supervised professional experience requirements of subsection F of this section may qualify on demonstration of twenty years' licensed or certified practice as a psychologist in a jurisdiction of the United States or Canada.

J. An applicant who does not satisfy the supervised preinternship professional experience requirements of subsection E of this section or the supervised professional experience requirements of subsection G of this section, or a combination of subsections E and G of this section, may qualify on demonstration of ten years' licensed or certified practice as a psychologist in a jurisdiction of the United States or Canada.

K. The applicant shall complete a residency at the institution that awarded the applicant's doctoral degree. The residency shall require the following:

1. The student's active participation and involvement in learning.

2. Direct regular contact with faculty and other matriculated doctoral students.

3. Eighteen semester hours or thirty quarter hours or thirty-six trimester hours completed within a twelve-month consecutive period at the institution or a minimum of three hundred hours of student-faculty contact that involves face-to-face educational meetings conducted by the institution's psychology faculty and fully documented by the institution and the student. These meetings shall include interaction between the student and faculty and the student and other students and shall relate to the program content areas specified in subsection A, paragraph 4 of this section. These meetings shall be in addition to the supervised preinternship professional experience, clerkship or externship supervision hours or dissertation hours. On request by the board, the applicant shall obtain documentation from the institution showing how the applicant's performance was assessed and documented.

L. To determine whether an applicant satisfies the requirements of subsection A of this section relating to subject areas in applied psychology, the board may require the applicant to complete a respecialization program in a program or professional school of psychology that has either an established American psychological association accredited doctoral program in clinical or counseling psychology or school or educational psychology or an established doctoral program that meets board rules. The applicant must also:

1. Meet all of the requirements of the new respecialization area. The board shall give the applicant credit for coursework that the applicant has previously successfully completed and that meets the requirements of subsection A, paragraph 4 of this section.

2. Complete one thousand five hundred hours of supervised professional experience as prescribed in subsection F of this section.

3. Present a certificate or letter from the department head, training director or dean that verifies that the applicant completed the program and that identifies the specialty area of applied psychology the applicant completed.

M. For the purposes of subsection A, paragraph 4 of this section, "other suitable means" means that an applicant demonstrates competence by being a diplomate of the American board of professional psychology or, if an applicant fails to demonstrate completion of coursework in two content areas prescribed in subsection A, paragraph 4 of this section, the applicant has fulfilled the two deficient requirements by successfully passing a graduate course in each deficient content area as a nonmatriculated student in a doctoral level psychology program at a university that is accredited pursuant to subsection A, paragraph 1 of this section.