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• School of Applied Psychology and Counselor Education
• College of Education and Behavioral Sciences

Practicum Experiences

Practica at UNC are supervised by the core Counseling Psychology faculty, all of whom are licensed psychologists or actively working toward licensure. In order to maximize your learning experiences, practicum classes are kept small (6-7 students). Because practica are usually on-site and supervised by our faculty, we are able to carefully monitor the quality of a student’s practicum experiences. During the first two semesters of individual therapy practica, supervisors observe students’ sessions from behind a one-way mirror. In addition, students also video record all of their sessions and supervisors will dub feedback directly onto their recordings. Live supervision is also utilized for the Group and Couples & Family therapy practicum experiences. Later in their programs, students enroll in Psychological Services Clinic I & II (APCE 793 & 794) where student are given more autonomy and life-supervision of sessions may no longer occur, but sessions will still be recorded.  During the advanced practica, students will also conduct psychological assessments with clients as part of their training.

While the live-supervision represents a huge time commitment for our faculty, we are committed to this model of practicum training as a way of ensuring systematic and controlled training for each of our students.  In addition, current students report that our practicum supervision is one of the reasons they were attracted to UNC.  Students on internship often report that their preparation in therapeutic interventions was far superior to that of their fellow interns and our graduates frequently describe practicum as being one of the most beneficial aspects of their doctoral training.