The University of Tulsa
Counseling & Psychological Services Center

Location: Tulsa, Oklahoma Mailing address: University of Tulsa, Alexander Health Center, 800 S. Tucker Drive, Tulsa, OK 74104 Funding: $5,000 secondary, not available as primary Time on site: 12 hrs. secondary Primary on-site supervisor(s): Tom Brian, Ed.D.; Michael McClendon, Psy.D. Contact person: Tom Brian, Ed.D., Director

The University of Tulsa (TU) is Oklahoma's oldest independent university, located four miles from downtown Tulsa. TU offers undergraduate and graduate degrees in a variety of areas. Student enrollment consists of approximately 2500 undergraduate students, 740 graduate students, and 580 law students.

TU's Counseling and Psychological Services Center shares space with the Alexander Student Health Center, which provides routine and acute non-emergency medical services to students and faculty of TU. The counseling center offers a broad range of professional services to all students, faculty, staff, and employee's immediate families. The twofold mission of the counseling center is 1) to provide counseling and psychoeducational services to students, faculty, staff, and university employees' immediate families and 2) to provide doctoral training for graduate students in psychology.

The counseling center staff is trained to help college students adapt to the changes and transitions of college life as well as to help faculty and staff function more effectively in their roles. The staff is sensitive to the unique characteristics of an intelligent, motivated, diverse student body while being committed to the responsible practice of counseling and psychology. In providing services, the staff attends to developmental, environmental, and remedial concerns. They recognize that the stresses associated with a high-pressure, academic environment at a critical developmental period often lead to problems that can be coped with more effectively through psychological counseling. This counseling may be accomplished individually or in a group. The staff is also committed to a preventive approach, realizing the importance of efforts to address areas of potential difficulty before they become problems. Preventive services include offering psychoeducational workshops or classes and consulting about individual situations. Whether working remedially or preventively, the staff's emphasis is on the development of the whole person.

The intern has opportunities to participate in all of the services offered that are described below. Training experiences can be tailored to meet the intern's individual training goals and interests. At least one hour of individual supervision is provided to the intern by a licensed psychologist, in addition to opportunities for clinical consultation with other staff clinicians and graduate students in weekly staff meetings.

Counseling/Psychotherapy: Many opportunities for individual therapy and some couples therapy are available. Possibilities for family and group therapy also exist, although are much less frequent. Sessions generally run for about one hour weekly. The number of sessions varies widely, depending on the nature of the issue and the preferences of the client and therapist.

Psychoeducational Workshops and Programs: The counseling center offers a variety of topical workshops for individuals interested in building personal and academic skills. Assertiveness training, study skills, performance-enhancing imagery, life and career planning, stress management, sexual assault prevention, self-modification and interpersonal communication skills are some examples. Programs dealing with alcohol and drug-related issues are also conducted.

Consultation: The counseling center provides consultation services to the university community. Students, faculty and staff may consult with center staff in regard to situations related to campus life problems. Programs can be designed to address the specific needs of a department, group, or organization. Also, because of the counseling center's close proximity to the campus health services, opportunities are available for consultation with the medical staff about integrating psychological interventions with family medical practice.

Referral: Counseling/psychotherapy at the center is voluntary. If a client's needs might be better met by other resources, he/she is referred, on a voluntary basis, to those resources.

Teaching/Training: Interns may have the opportunity to do teaching or training with students in the University's APA-accredited clinical psychology program with staff who are on the clinical faculty.

To learn more about the University of Tulsa Counseling and Psychological Services Center, go to www.utulsa.edu/cpsc/