The clinical psychology doctorate program at University of Rhode Island is ultra-competitive, accepting maybe 3% or 4% of the 200 to 300 applications it receives each year. The school’s graduate program ing licensed mental health counseling aims to produce more mental health professionals through rigorous training that’s less demanding than earning a Ph.D. (Getty Images)

The vast majority of the approximately 1,000 undergraduate University of Rhode Island (URI) students who major in psychology each year never become practicing clinicians. Nor do they want to. 

“Psychology is nicely paired with many other things,” said Mark Robbins, chair of the psychology department at URI since 2016, in a phone interview Tuesday. “I see a range of students who are psychology majors, but they’re not interested in becoming a licensed provider.”

But for students who do want to enter clinical practice, a new advanced degree from URI could fill in the gap between the school’s many psychology undergraduates and the elite few in the school’s clinical psychology doctorate program. 

Starting in January 2025, applications for URI’s new Master of Science in Mental and Behavioral Health Counseling will open. The first cohort of approximately 10 students is anticipated to begin studies next summer and receive their degrees by summer 2027. The class will slowly increase in size each year until reaching about 40 when fully up and running.

The new degree offering received final approval at a June 28 meeting of the URI Board of Trustees, after having been approved by President Marc Parlange in May and the Faculty Senate in April. 

“The thing about psychology is, when you walk across the stage at the end of your undergraduate, you have a bachelor’s in psychology, but you’re not a psychologist,” Robbins said. “It’s different than if you walk across the stage in engineering, you get to say you’re an engineer…But psychology, you have to have training to deliver service, you have to have a license, and that license requires, usually either very significant training plus courses or a master’s degree.”

The new masters program contrasts the existing clinical psychology P.hD. program in its focus and intensity. Robbins said the Ph.D. track students number maybe five a year and require extensive mentoring and research experience in addition to clinical responsibilities. 

The Ph.D. students are “training as a researcher, and that is not the thing you can do in large numbers,” Robbins said. “I typically have maybe four or five Ph.D. students who are working with me, and they’re all at different levels, from brand new to more senior.”

The demand for research savvy isn’t as intense for mental health counselors. Robbins said counselors should know how to consume research, but they probably won’t be consulting the top 40 journal articles monthly or in the course of their daily practice. Clinical Ph.D.s may spend half a decade on their degrees, and a Psy.D., or Doctor of Psychology program, can take just as long to complete. There’s also postdoctoral training involved for any clinician. 

Enrolled students will gain experience through URI’s on-campus training clinic, the Psychological Consultation Center, and internship opportunities in settings like Rhode Island Hospital. Robbins said local hospitals and health care providers always seem to be looking for licensed mental health counselors (LMHC) or social workers; he often sees eight to 12 positions open at any given time. Students who enroll in the new masters program will be well on their way to achieving state certification for licensed mental health counseling, for which Rhode Island law requires 2,000 hours of direct clinical experience.  

Similar programs for school psychologists have existed at URI in the past, but the licensed mental health counselor track is new, and it’s a thought Robbins said he has mulled for some time. The opportunity to develop the plan came when the university launched a strategic initiative to craft new degree programs.

“It took some convincing. Everybody’s always worried that their workload will change, I guess,” Robbins said, adding that workforce development is another valid reason to offer the program. At full enrollment capacity, or approximately 40 students, the new program should generate around $450,000 in revenue for URI, according to the proposal.

Rhode Island has high need for mental health clinicians

Newport and Washington counties, as well as Providence with its concentration of low-income residents, are all considered “high needs” areas for mental health clinicians in Rhode Island, according to the federal Health Resources and Services Administration. The federal administration designates both geographic areas and specific facilities lacking enough health care professionals as health provider shortage areas. 

Rhode Island has eight federally qualified health centers in the state with a subpar provider-to-patient ratio, and the Narragansett Indian Tribe Health & Human Services agency also scores as high need.

Still, a 2024 data table from KFF that used federal data shows Rhode Island, at 58.1%, ranking third nationwide in meeting its population’s needs for mental health care. That’s more than double the national average of 26.8%. A 2023 article from the American Counseling Association pointed to reimbursement rates, lack of funding, high turnover, a greater need for services, and a counseling workforce approaching retirement as reasons for the nationwide shortage.

URI has yet to publicly advertise the program but will start within the next month, Robbins said. The program will also apply for American Psychological Association accreditation — the same accreditation received by the 50-year-old clinical psychology doctorate program — but that process takes a few years.

Psychology courses can be useful for aspiring med students and students interested in behavioral science and research, Robbins said. Still, he recalled being momentarily stumped when a philosophy department chair once asked him what made psychology so popular with so many students.

“I think we’re a culture which is very interested in how we think, how we feel, how we understand ourselves,” Robbins said. “I think this is an area where lots of students [say], ‘Yeah, this is both useful for me to learn about myself as much as it is about what I might do for my career.’”

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