I would like to broaden this thread a bit by posing several related
questions. UWF has a Master's program in counseling psychology, places
students in supervised practica, and requires an internship experience in a
counseling setting as part of the degree requirements. The questions about
screening students for psychopathology raise several important issues:
1. Programs have an ethical and legal obligation to protect the community
from harm that might occur from placing a student in a practicum or
internship setting when the student is not prepared to function in these
environments either in terms of academic preparedness, quality of social
skill, and/or presence of psychological dysfunction. What is the best way
to go about evaluating students in a program to ensure that the community
has been duly protected? Would it be appropriate to include such an
evaluation during the admission process? If so, how can this be done
reliably? (Our program eventually disbanded attempts at admission
interviews because the faculty did not believe these were serving their
intended purpose. We now rely on extensive, term-by-term evaluation of
students in the program (on all the dimensions noted above) and may decline
practicum or internship placements if students don't seem ready. Except
for course grades, this evaluation is done subjectively.)
2. A colleague noted that requiring students to undergo therapy as part of
their training raises several difficult issues. These include: Who pays
for this therapy and/or determines who conducts the therapy? If the
faculty act as therapists, problems of dual relations arise (should a
practicum or internship supervisor be in the business of conducting therapy
with his/her supervisee?). If referals are made to external therapists,
problems of confidentiality arise (which will ultimately undermine the
usefulness of requiring therapy as a means of protecting the community from
harm) as well as other issues such as determining when "enough" therapy has
taken place.
I have lots of questions and no good answers. What do other programs of
this type do?
Claudia Stanny
________________________________________________________
Claudia J. Stanny, Ph.D. e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Department of Psychology Phone: (850) 474 - 3163
University of West Florida FAX: (850) 857 - 6060
Pensacola, FL 32514 - 5751
Web: http://www.uwf.edu/psych/stanny.html
