2005 Arizona Revised Statutes - Revised Statutes §32-2071  Qualifications of applicant; education; training

A. An applicant for licensure shall have a doctoral degree from an institution of higher education in clinical or counseling psychology, school or educational psychology or any other subject area in applied psychology acceptable to the board and shall have completed a doctoral program in psychology from an educational institution that has:

1. Been accredited by one of the following regional accrediting agencies at the time of the applicant's graduation:

(a) The New England association of schools and colleges.

(b) The middle states association of colleges and schools.

(c) The north central association of colleges and schools.

(d) The northwest association of schools and colleges.

(e) The southern association of colleges and schools.

(f) The western association of schools and colleges.

2. A program that is identified and labeled as a psychology program and that stands as a recognized, coherent organizational entity within the institution with clearly identified entry and exit criteria for graduate students in the program.

3. An identifiable psychology faculty in the area of health service delivery and a psychologist responsible for the program.

4. A core program that requires each student to demonstrate competence by passing suitable comprehensive examinations or by successfully completing at least three or more graduate semester hours or the equivalent quarter hours or by other suitable means in the following content areas:

(a) Scientific and professional ethics and standards in psychology.

(b) Research, which may include design, methodology, statistics and psychometrics.

(c) The biological basis of behavior, which may include physiological psychology, comparative psychology, neuropsychology, sensation and perception and psychopharmacology.

(d) The cognitive-affective basis of behavior, which may include learning, thinking, motivation and emotion.

(e) The social basis of behavior, which may include social psychology, group processes and organizational and systems theory.

(f) Individual differences, which may include personality theory, human development and abnormal psychology.

(g) Assessment, which includes instruction in interviewing and the administration, scoring and interpretation of psychological test batteries for the diagnosis of cognitive abilities and personality functioning.

(h) Treatment modalities, which include instruction in the theory and application of a diverse range of psychological interventions for the treatment of mental, emotional, psychological and behavioral disorders.

5. A psychology program that leads to a doctoral degree requiring at least the equivalent of three full-time academic years of graduate study, two years of which are at the institution from which the doctoral degree is granted.

6. A requirement that the student must successfully defend a dissertation, the content of which is primarily psychological, or an equivalent project acceptable to the board.

7. Official transcripts that have been prepared solely by the institution and not by the student and, except for manifest clerical errors or grade changes, have not been altered by the institution after the student's graduation.

8. Given the student credit only for course work listed on its official transcripts and that is obtained only at regionally accredited educational institutions as listed in paragraph 1 of this subsection and does not give credit for continuing education experiences or courses.

B. If the institution is located outside the United States, the applicant shall demonstrate that the program meets the requirements of subsection A, paragraphs 2 through 7 and subsections C through K.

C. The applicant shall complete relevant didactic courses of the program required under subsection A, paragraph 5 before starting the internship or training program. An applicant shall have completed a minimum of three thousand hours of supervised professional experience as prescribed pursuant to subsections D and E.

D. The first one thousand five hundred hours of supervised professional experience, which shall not include predoctoral experiences in clerkships or practicums, shall be either an internship that is approved by the American psychological association committee on accreditation, an internship that is a member of the association of psychology postdoctoral and internship centers or an organized training program that is designed to provide the trainee with a planned, programmed sequence of training experience, the focus and purpose of which are to assure breadth and quality of training, and that meets the following requirements:

1. The training program has a clearly designated staff psychologist who is responsible for the integrity and quality of the training and who is licensed or certified to practice psychology at the independent level by any licensing jurisdiction of the United States or Canada in which the program exists.

2. The training program provides at least two psychologists on staff as supervisors, at least one of whom is licensed or certified as a psychologist by the state board of psychologist examiners in the state in which the program exists and at least one of whom is directly available to the trainee in case of emergency.

3. Supervision is provided by the person who carries clinical responsibility for the cases being supervised. At least half of the training supervision shall be provided by one or more psychologists.

4. Training includes a range of assessment, consultation and treatment activities conducted directly with clients.

5. A minimum of twenty-five per cent of a trainee's time is in direct client contact.

6. Training includes regular face-to-face, individual supervision conducted on a contemporaneous basis, with a minimum of one hour of face-to-face, individual supervision for each twenty hours of experience and with the specific intent of dealing with psychological services rendered directly by the trainee and at least two additional hours per week in other learning activities.

7. The training program includes interaction with other psychology trainees.

8. Trainees have a title that designates their trainee status.

9. The training organization has a written statement that describes the goals and content of the training and states clear expectations for the quality and quantity of a trainee's work.

10. The initial training experience, which may be predoctoral, may be for a minimum of one thousand five hundred hours that shall be completed within twenty-four consecutive months.

E. The second one thousand five hundred hours of supervised professional experience shall be postdoctoral and may start on written certification by the applicant's education program that the applicant has satisfied all requirements for the doctoral degree and on written certification that the applicant has completed an appropriate training program as required in subsection D. The second one thousand five hundred hours of supervised professional experience shall meet the following requirements:

1. Supervision is conducted by a psychologist who is licensed or certified to practice psychology at the independent level in any licensing jurisdiction of the United States or Canada in which the supervision occurs or by a psychologist who is on full-time active duty in the United States armed services and who is licensed or certified by a board of psychologist examiners in a United States jurisdiction, who has been licensed or certified for at least two years and who is competent in the areas of functioning of the applicant.

2. The supervisor takes full legal responsibility for the welfare of the client as well as the diagnosis, intervention and outcome of the intervention and takes reasonable steps to ensure that clients are informed of the supervisee's training and status and that clients may meet with the supervisor at the client's request.

3. The supervisor is responsible for ensuring that adequate records of client contacts are maintained and that the client is informed that the source of access to this information in the future is the supervisor.

4. The supervisor is fully available for consultation in the event of an emergency and provides emergency consultation coverage for the supervisee.

5. Regular face-to-face, individual supervision is conducted on a contemporaneous basis, with a minimum of one hour of face-to-face, individual supervision for each twenty hours of experience. At least six hundred hours of the supervisee's time shall be in direct contact with clients.

6. The training experience is for a minimum of one thousand five hundred hours and is completed within thirty-six consecutive months.

F. In meeting the work experience requirements of this section, an applicant shall not receive credit for more than forty hours of experience per week.

G. An applicant who does not satisfy the internship experience requirements of subsection D may qualify on demonstration of twenty years' licensed or certified practice as a psychologist in a jurisdiction of the United States or Canada.

H. An applicant who does not satisfy the postdoctoral experience requirements of subsection E may qualify on demonstration of ten years' licensed or certified practice as a psychologist in a jurisdiction of the United States or Canada.

I. The applicant shall complete a residency at the institution that awarded the applicant's doctoral degree. The residency shall require the following:

1. The student's active participation and involvement in learning.

2. Direct regular contact with faculty and other matriculated doctoral students.

3. Twenty-four semester hours taken on a full-time or part-time basis at the institution or a minimum of three hundred hours of student-faculty contact that involves face-to-face educational meetings conducted by the institution's psychology faculty and fully documented by the institution and the student. These meetings shall include interaction between the student and faculty and the student and other students and shall relate to the program content areas specified in subsection A, paragraph 4. These meetings shall be in addition to the practicum, clerkship or externship supervision hours or dissertation hours. On request by the applicant or the board, the institution shall provide documentation showing how the applicant's performance was assessed and documented.

J. To determine if an applicant satisfies the requirements of subsection A relating to subject areas in applied psychology, the board may require the applicant to complete a respecialization program in a program or professional school of psychology that has either an established American psychological association accredited doctoral program in clinical or counseling psychology or school or educational psychology or an established doctoral program that meets board rules. The applicant must also:

1. Meet all of the requirements of the new respecialization area. The board shall give the applicant credit for course work that the applicant has previously successfully completed and that meets the requirements of subsection A, paragraph 4.

2. Complete one thousand five hundred hours of supervised professional experience as prescribed in subsection D.

3. Present a certificate or letter from the department head, training director or dean that verifies that the applicant completed the program and that identifies the specialty area of applied psychology the applicant completed.

K. For the purposes of subsection A, paragraph 4, "other suitable means" means that an applicant demonstrates competence by being a diplomate of the American board of professional psychology or, if an applicant fails to demonstrate completion of course work in two content areas prescribed in subsection A, paragraph 4, the applicant has fulfilled the two deficient requirements by successfully passing a course in each deficient content area as a nonmatriculated student in a doctoral level psychology program at a university that is accredited pursuant to subsection A, paragraph 1.