1   Programs that are accredited by the American Psychological Association (APA) or the Canadian Psychological Association (CPA) are recognized as meeting the definition of a professional psychology program. The criteria for accreditation serve as a model for professional psychology training.

Or all of the following criteria, 2 through 10:

 2   Training in professional psychology is doctoral training offered in a regionally accredited institution of higher education.

 3   The program, wherever it may be administratively housed, must be clearly identified and labeled as a psychology program. Such a program must specify in pertinent institutional catalogues and brochures its intent to educate and train professional psychologists.

 4   The psychology program must stand as a recognizable, coherent organizational entity within the institution.

 5   There must be a clear authority and primary responsibility for the core and specialty areas whether or not the program cuts across administrative lines.

 6   The program must be an integrated, organized sequence of study.

 7   There must be an identifiable psychology faculty and a psychologist responsible for the program.

 8   The program must have an identifiable body of students who are matriculated in that program for a degree.

 9   The program must include supervised practicum, internship, field or laboratory training appropriate to the practice of psychology.

 10   The curriculum shall encompass a minimum of three academic years of full time graduate study. In addition to instruction in scientific and professional ethics and standards, research design and methodology, statistics and psychometrics, the core program shall require each student to demonstrate competence in each of the following substantive content areas. This typically will be met by including a minimum of three or more graduate semester hours (five or more graduate quarter hours) in each of these four substantive content areas:

 a   Biological bases of behavior: Physiological psychology, comparative psychology, neuropsychology, sensation and perception, and psychopharmacology.

 b   Cognitive-affective bases of behavior: Learning, thinking, motivation, and emotion.

 c   Social bases of behavior: Social psychology, group processes, organizational and systems theory.

 d   Individual differences: Personality theory, human development, and abnormal psychology.

In addition, all professional education programs in psychology will include course requirements in specialty areas.

   Footnotes (added) 

 a   Reference to "professional psychology" in guidelines (1 and 2) refers to psychology as a profession. The term is not intended in the more restrictive sense of applied or practice areas of psychology since the intent is for a generic designation system.

 b   It is understood that guideline #10 includes the requirement of a minimum of one year's residency at the educational institution granting the doctoral degree.

 c   In reference to guideline #7, there must be an identifiable psychology faculty on site sufficient in size and breadth to carry out its responsibilities.

 d   In reference to "instruction in scientific and professional ethics and standards, research design and methodology, statistics and psychometrics" in guideline #10, it is understood that a course of three or more graduate semester hours (five or more graduate quarter hours) or its equivalent is highly desirable; substantial instruction in these issues is required.

 e   Guideline #2 refers to an institution with regional accreditation in the United States, an institution with provincial authorization in Canada, or in other countries, an institution that is accredited by a body which is deemed by the ASPPB/National Register Joint Designation Committee to be performing a function equivalent to U.S. regional accrediting bodies.