UNC - Hosted Conferences

The clinical program and its faculty have organized several local and national conferences. Each of these conferences offers an outstanding training opportunity for students at UNC.

Advancement of Minorities in Clinical Psychology
Obessive-Compulsive Foundation's Behavior Therapy Institute
UNC-Duke Developmental Psychopathology Conference
Undergraduate Psychology Conference
Annual Meeting of the Association of Directors of Psychology Training Clinics (ADPTC)

Advancement of Minorities in Clinical Psychology
The Clinical Psychology sponsored the “Advancement of Minorities in Clinical Psychology at Carolina”, on Monday, April 21, 2008. The afternoon event included promising sophomore, junior and senior Psychology Majors who were selected for the invitation-only event by professors and graduate students. As the keynote speaker, Dr. Vinston Goldman, the Coordinator of the Psychology Graduate Program at North Carolina Central University, and a graduate of the clinical program at UNC, spoke to students about his graduate school and professional experiences and why he decided to go into clinical psychology. Other topics during the day included getting into graduate school in clinical psychology, as well as graduate student, faculty, and professionals panels. Given the success of the day’s events, the Clinical Program hopes to make this program an annual event with the aim of recruiting more ethnic minority students into clinical training programs and, in turn, helping to address the dearth of ethnic minorities in the field of clinical psychology.

OC Foundation Behavior Therapy Institute
The Obsessive Compulsive Foundation’s annual “Behavior Therapy Institute (BTI)” will take place at the UNC-Chapel Hill Department of Psychology the weekend of October 17-19, 2008. The BTI, which is sponsored by the OC Foundation, is a seminar for licensed mental health professionals who work with people suffering from obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). It includes intensive training in how to use cognitive-behavior therapy (CBT), which is the most effective treatment for OCD. As Director of the UNC Anxiety and Stress Disorders Clinic, Dr. Jonathan Abramowitz will host the event and be one of the trainers. On Friday October 17, he will present a full-day workshop on understanding the nature of OCD, the theory behind using CBT and why it works, and the basics of how to use this treatment method. Some of the country’s leading experts on OCD will also be on hand to cover other topics during the weekend, such as how to adapt CBT for different types of OCD symptoms (e.g., washing, checking, religious obsessions), issues in combining CBT with medication, and how to help patients get motivated for therapy. On Sunday October 19th, the trainees participating in the BTI get to discuss their own treatment cases with one of these experts in small break-out group sessions. The Clinical Program and Anxiety and Stress Disorders Clinic are thrilled to host this year’s BTI, which aims to increase the number of therapists who are competent to provide effective treatment for the millions of OCD sufferers in the United States.

Undergraduate Psychology Conference
On Saturday, November 1, 2008 the Department of Psychology at UNC Chapel Hill will host the Undergraduate Psychology Conference in collaboration with the North Carolina Psychology Association (NCPA). This will be the 15th annual undergraduate conference and the first time that it has been held on our campus! The department is very excited about co-sponsoring this program and we hope to attract a large turn out of undergraduates from the UNC and area universities. Many of our faculty and graduate students will be speakers or panel participants for the conference. The conference is designed to provide an opportunity for undergraduates who are interested in graduate study and careers in psychology to get information about: 1) Careers in psychology; 2) Getting into graduate school; 3) Substantive areas of psychology; 4) In state graduate programs; 5) How to be successful with the GRE

Annual Meeting of the Association of Directors of Psychology Training Clinics (ADPTC)
The Association of Directors of Psychology Training Clinics (ADTPC) is a professional organization for directors of psychology training clinics and interested associates. ADPTC is affiliated with the American Psychological Association (APA). There are over 150 members who direct training clinics in the United States, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. The theme of this meeting will be Diversity and Social Justice in Psychology Training Clinics. The conference will be hosted by UNC and organized by Erica H. Wise, Ph.D.