SUNY - Stony Brook University College of Arts & Sciences

The Stony Brook Ph.D. program in Clinical Psychological Science began in 1966. Based on chair rankings in US News and World Report, it has been ranked among the very top clinical programs in the United States for the past several decades, and it has a long tradition of strong publication rates by both faculty and graduates (Mattson et al., 2005; Roy et al., 2006). In the 2025 US News and World Report Rankings, the Stony Brook Clinical Psychology doctoral program was ranked 6th in the country. The clinical program was among the first in the country to espouse the behavioral tradition in clinical psychology. Currently, the program retains its behavioral roots, but has evolved to encompass a broader set of perspectives that are oriented around an empirical approach to clinical psychology. Our goal is to graduate clinical scientists who approach psychological problems from an evidence-based perspective and who are also skilled clinicians. As such, students receive research and clinical training in a broad range of approaches. Our program is most suited to students who are interested in pursuing academic and research-related careers.

The program is designed to provide students with competencies in research, clinical work, and teaching through coursework, research mentoring, and clinical supervision. Students follow a program of coursework through their first 3 to 4 years in the program that includes courses pertaining to the foundations of clinical psychology (e.g., psychopathology, assessment, and intervention), research methods and statistics, and ethics. Students are also required to take courses in other areas of psychology to increase breadth of training. Students become actively involved in a research lab upon arrival in the program and are required to complete two projects by the end of their third year in order to advance to candidacy, which is followed by the doctoral dissertation. Virtually all students present papers at major professional conferences and publish at least one (and often many) papers during the course of their graduate training. Clinical training, under the supervision of area faculty, begins in the second year of the program in our Krasner Psychological Center (KPC) and can continue until the internship year. Prior to internship, many students choose to complete externships at local agencies and hospitals in addition to their training in the KPC. Throughout the program, students often work as teaching assistants and are required to complete at least two semesters of substantial direct instruction of undergraduates, which involves lecturing in undergraduate classes. Students typically complete the program, including the internship year, in 6 years.

Departmental: Faculty maintain active laboratories for research and graduate training (see individual faculty pages for further description). Clinical facilities include the Krasner Psychological Center (KPC) and its affiliate, the Anxiety Disorders Clinic, which are training, research, and service units that provide psychological services and consultation to the community and campus.

Campus: Collaborative relationships exist with the Department of Psychiatry, the University Counseling and Psychological Services and the Center for Prevention and Outreach, where students can engage in research and clinical activities.

Off-campus: Affiliations have been established with numerous agencies on Long Island and in the surrounding areas, which provide opportunities for clinical externships and research collaboration.