A Humanistic Mission: The Creation of Point Park University’s PsyD in Clinical Psychology

Abstract

Point Park University’s PsyD in Clinical Psychology was granted accreditation by the APA’s Commission on Accreditation (CoA) in May of 2024. It remains one of the few APA-accredited doctoral programs in Clinical Psychology with an explicit mission to train clinical psychologists in humanistic psychological and human science-oriented practices and research methodologies. The success of this program hinged upon a strategy based on building a successful master’s level degree in Clinical-Community Psychology. The academic and financial success of the MA program was instrumental in gaining the confidence of the administration to invest in the launch of the PsyD program in 2017. The Mission of Point Park University’s PsyD program in Clinical Psychology is to cultivate in students the development of high-quality psychological practices that strive to respect individual and cultural diversity as well as provide evidence-based solutions to individual, communal and cultural challenges to mental health and well-being. Faculty and students work to advance research and practices that are highly context-sensitive and integrative, drawing upon a wide variety of broadly humanistic, psychodynamic, and critical frameworks that are informed by a holistic, systems-oriented perspective, which honors, at the same time, the uniqueness, dignity, and irreducibility of the person.