Department of
Psychological and Brain Sciences

Since the early 1990s, the IU Clinical Science framework has been a model for graduate education in Clinical Psychology. The department is now creating new pathways for undergraduates with a first-of-its-kind Bachelor of Science degree program in Clinical Science.

The new degree is on a remarkable trajectory. Having grown from 30 students in 2022 to 225 a year later, it is now at 400 and projected to reach 500 students by 2028.

Centered on the diagnosis, treatment, and assessment of mental health disorders, the program draws students interested in a wide variety of health-related fields: counseling and psychotherapy, neuropsychology, medicine (especially psychiatry and neurology),  clinical science research, drug development and the pharmaceutical industry, nursing, social work, public policy, and a host of others.

As program co-director PBS Clinical Assistant Professor Natasha Hansen, one of several faculty members who have helped to usher in the major, explains, “Many students are psychology majors because they’re interested in mental illnesses and what we can do to optimize mental health and wellbeing. Yet to the best of our knowledge, this is the first major of its kind in the country.”

Hansen and program co-director PBS Clinical Assistant Professor Emma Schiestl have refined the curriculum to expand the knowledge and experience it provides. With the aid of PBS Director of Undergraduate Studies Jason Gold, they have built on the initial foundational work of former PBS Chair Bill Hetrick and former Clinical Assistant Professor Anne Zhang who crafted the first proposal for the major and steered it through a years-long process of state approval.

Now that the program is up and running, it’s taken on a life of its own. As Gold puts it, “Once Natasha and Emma set to work refining and promoting the major, it just exploded.”

Features of the program

The program follows in the footsteps of an IU Clinical Science tradition strongly rooted in an evidence-based approach to mental health. As Schiestl explains, core classes early in the curriculum develop students’ capacity to think critically about mental health treatments and different disorders, to address such questions as “What constitutes evidence or effectiveness? What kind of evidence do I need to say that my therapy is working?” Students learn how clinical science approaches mental health from a hypothesis-testing, empirical perspective, very focused on how we determine causality.

More than simply gaining a theoretical overview of different disorders, methods, and treatments, students also gain hands-on experience with certain empirically supported treatments and interventions.

“Applied learning is a really strong emphasis,” says Schiestl. For example, in her class, “Diagnosis and Treatment of Eating Disorders,” she explains, “my students will practice going through exercises from the Body Project, which is an evidence-based intervention for the prevention of eating disorders in college students.”

“It’s uncommon for students at the undergraduate level to get experience actually trying the evidence-based practices or even seeing them,” explains Hansen, whose class, “Science and Practice of Mindfulness as a Therapeutic Tool,” likewise gives students the opportunity to practice the psychotherapy techniques they are learning about.

In addition to delving into hands-on interventions, students also become familiar with a range of clinical perspectives. They are encouraged to take clinically-oriented courses like “Drugs and the Nervous System” in the neuroscience program or a clinically relevant course in another PBS domain, such as Developmental or Cognitive Psychology. To gain interdisciplinary perspectives on mental health, students are required to take courses in other departments like Counseling or Social Work where they encounter contrasting theoretical frameworks, enabling them to see the field through a different lens. They can take courses that look at mental health care through a “macro perspective” by taking a class such as “Health Care in America” in the School of Public Health.

The scope of the program also gives students exposure to a wide variety of careers. “I think one of the reasons this major is popular is because it is so clear how it can translate directly, not just into one career opportunity, but a wide range of different opportunities,” says Hansen. “Students see the direct link between what they’re learning and how they’ll be able to use it in their job or to make them a stronger candidate for graduate school.”

Looking toward the future

And indeed, the enthusiastic feedback confirms how important that glimpse of the future can be for students. As Premed PBS 2025 Graduate, Sajid Habib, wrote to Hansen describing his experience in one of the core courses within the Clinical Science major, “Your ‘Clinical Neuroscience’ class was one of the few times in college when I felt like I got a real preview of what life as a doctor might look like. The way you incorporated real world cases and clinical thinking gave me something to look forward to, especially at times when the path to becoming an MD can feel overwhelming. Clinical Neuroscience still stands out as the course that solidified my decision to pursue medicine. I vividly remember looking forward to lectures, knowing that I would walk away having learned something that could genuinely make a difference one day in how I approach patients, think through diagnoses, or simply understand someone’s lived experience with a neurological condition.”

Clinical Science major Cathlynn Harrington, a rising junior, reported back to Schiestl that the knowledge of techniques and treatments learned in her course, “Foundations of Clinical Science,” are what prompted a pediatric therapist to hire her:

“I had a phone call regarding a shadowing experience for this upcoming summer with a clinical psychologist in my hometown who works at a pediatric therapy service provider. I told her about this course and some of the things we talked about. She was SO shocked and impressed that I was familiar with those things as a sophomore, she actually offered me the opportunity on the spot.”

Hansen and Schiestl have also received enthusiastic feedback about the new program beyond IU and foresee the possibility of presenting the model to other likeminded psychology departments around the country. In the past such in-depth study of clinical science has been limited to Ph.D. students. Now undergraduates with a broader range of interests and career goals can benefit from the strengths of this orientation – and by extension so will the communities they go on to serve.