The principal goal of IU’s Clinical Science Program is to train students who can function as clinical psychological scientists by advancing basic knowledge, applying this knowledge to address clinical problems, and disseminating this knowledge to others.

These three characteristics of the program are not considered separate activities but rather integrative. Clinical scientists frequently integrate activities across research, application, and dissemination within the scope of the same endeavor, although we consider our alumni to be “successful” clinical scientists by excelling in at least one of these domains.

The philosophy underlying our training is that rigorous training in clinical science will influence how our current students and alumni will perform their work in these areas.

Our Clinical Science program is not for everyone. If your primary interests include becoming a practitioner or service provider, you are encouraged to apply elsewhere. There are over 160 APA-accredited clinical programs in the United States and Canada, and most of these programs have a more applied emphasis than Indiana University. In a survey of the accredited clinical programs, for instance, Indiana University was one of only seven schools to describe their programs’ emphasis as a “7” on a 7-point scale, where 1 = clinically oriented and 7 = research oriented. We believe that applicants with a clear preference for careers as clinical scientists will find Indiana’s program challenging and rewarding.

Our program’s research orientation does not mean that our students graduate without clinical skills. On the contrary, we believe that the best clinical researchers also must be competent clinicians in order to gain access to clinical problems, to interact with clinical populations, and to understand the phenomena being studied.