Beyond the Rube Goldberg Model of Clinical Training: Toward More Efficient Training of Core Competencies

Although there has been much discussion over the past several decades regarding models of clinical training, there has been too little explication of 3 related, and perhaps more fundamental, questions: (a) the specification of training outcomes question, that is, what exactly are the core competencies of a clinical psychologist that any training model is attempting to produce? (b) the training efficacy question, that is, how can these outcomes be effectively taught? and (c) the training efficiency question, that is, how can these outcomes be most efficiently trained? As a result of this neglect, training in clinical psychology is now unfocused and inefficient. Currently, training typically involves a process of 5 or more years of graduate training, an additional 1-year internship, 1 to 2 years of postdoctoral training, and then perhaps an additional year spent in preparation for state and national license examinations. This entire process can take a decade and still yield unclear outcomes. This article argues that this training process is poorly designed and thus disorganized and wasteful. The authors propose a set of core competencies for doctoral-level psychologists and propose a more efficient 4-year training model for achieving these.