[The initial post seems to have been lost in cyberspace. I apologize in advance for the repetition if it reappears.] 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
