The Psychological Services Center at Syracuse University provides treatment for children, adolescents, adults, couples and families related to a variety of concerns, including:

• Depression
• Anxiety
• Grief
• Anger
• Academic or vocational functioning
• Relationship difficulties
• Self-esteem
• Sexuality concerns
• Substance use problems
• Trauma
• ADHD
• Autism Spectrum Disorders

Your first appointment will be approximately 2 hours in length, and will include completing some questionnaires and a clinical interview with one of our student therapists. The goals of administering the questionnaires and clinical interview are to obtain information regarding your background and what led you to seek treatment. If, after review by our Director, we determine that PSC is an appropriate setting for you to receive treatment, your assigned therapist will contact you to schedule the first therapy session. Sometimes clients who are in need of different or more specialized services will be referred for treatment elsewhere. In such cases, the intake therapist explains the rationale for this decision, and assists the client in the referral process.

Therapy is an ongoing process in which you meet for weekly 50 minute sessions with a therapist. The duration of treatment will be collaboratively determined with your therapist based on your individual situation and needs. Therapy is aimed at helping you attain a better understanding of the difficulties that brought you to treatment, and may provide you with strategies and skills to help address the concerns and symptoms you are experiencing. All services are provided in an environment that is sensitive to variations in cultural background, sexual orientation, religion and other important individual differences.

The Syracuse University Psychological Services Center (PSC) offers comprehensive testing and evaluation services for adults, adolescents and children. Although a range of assessment services are available, we specialize in the assessment of Attention Deficit / Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD).

We provide structured assessments of a client’s current psychological functioning, including the evaluation of cognitive, behavioral, and emotional strengths and challenges. We provide detailed feedback about the outcome of assessments, along with recommendations for treatment and managing symptoms.

Benefits of our assessment services:

• Usually, only one 3 hour appointment is needed for assessment. However, depending on the reason for the psychological evaluation, the client’s age and functioning, the clinical interview and assessments may require more than one appointment.
• A comprehensive psychological evaluation includes a clinical interview and a range of psychological tests tailored to the specific nature of the presenting concerns or referral question.
• Each protocol is individually planned and reviewed by a licensed psychologist. Given that we are a training clinic, we plan a comprehensive battery with an array of measures. With children and adolescents, it is also important to include information from significant others, particularly parents and teachers, as well as to review prior treatment and school records.
• Assessment reports and feedback are available quickly, typically within a month after the completion of testing. A formal, integrated report of findings and recommendations will be provided to the client.
• If specific treatment is recommended based on the assessment findings, the PSC can often provide those services.

What does an evaluation cost?

We charge a set fee for the battery of tests, scoring and report writing instead of an hourly charge. Fees for assessments are due prior to the beginning the testing.

• Our fee for ADHD and Psychological Testing is $275 for SU and ESF students
• Our fee for other community members is $300

The following groups are offered at the PSC. Please call the clinic to see if they are currently running or are scheduled to be offered in the near future.

1. ADHD skills group: adults aged 18+ (currently recruiting)
2. The Incredible Years (not currently running)
3. Social Skills Training Group Program: Children Ages 7 - 12 years old (currently recruiting, classes begin late Sep/early October)
4. The Body Project: ages 12-17 & 18-24 (currently recruiting)

Please read below for more information about each group.

1. ADHD skills group

This group is intended for college students who have either been diagnosed with ADHD, or who are experiencing symptoms of ADHD (e.g., difficulty staying focused, disorganization, procrastination). The group will consist of approximately 6-8 people.

Specific topics that will be addressed include: awareness of ADHD deficits, planner use and scheduling, overcoming procrastination, prioritizing and planning, establishment and maintenance of organizational systems, follow-through on tasks, and long-range planning. The program also addresses symptoms of anxiety and depression as they can worsen the problems described above.

A detailed outline of the treatment is provided below. Please contact PSC at 443-3595 for more information.

2. The Incredible Years

The Incredible Years (IY) program is an evidence based group intervention for parents that aims to reduce challenging behaviors in children and increase children's social emotional learning and self-control skills. Parents meet as a group with a trained facilitator. Parents are given opportunities to collectively and individually develop new strategies for managing their children and working together in collaborative partnerships.

The IY parent groups meet for 12 sessions, each lasting 90-minutes.

The following topics are covered in the group:

• The importance of parental attention and special time with children
• Academic, persistence, emotion & social coaching
• Effective praise and encouragement
• Using incentives to motivate children
• Household rules, responsibilities, and routines
• Monitoring children’s whereabouts
• Clear and respectful limit setting
• Ignoring misbehavior
• Using time out for destructive behavior & extreme oppositional behavior
• Imposing logical & natural consequences
• Promoting reading skills
• Dealing with children’s discouragement
• Fostering good learning habits and routines
• Parent involvement with teachers

3. Social Skills Training Group Program: Children Ages 7 - 12 years old

Child Group

Sessions 1 – 10

• Session 1: Introduction, rules, emotional thermometer
• Session 2: Fact files
• Session 3: SENSE
• Session 4: Conversation towers
• Session 5: Interpersonal effectiveness (getting what you want; getting along)
• Session 6: Emotional Tool Box
• Session 7: Piosonous thoughts / antidotes
• Session 8: SODA
• Session 9: Perspective taking
• Session 10: Review

The first session focuses on establishing group rules for treating each other with respect, and on developing better emotional awareness of one’s self and others. Activities stress understanding gradations of simple emotions including happy, sad, angry, and afraid as well as more complex emotions including pride, guilt, and embarrassment.

Sessions 2 – 5 focus on receptive and expressive body language (facial expressions, body postures, and tone of voice) accompanying these emotions taught through modeling and role playing. Children learn how to use awareness of their own emotions as the basis for making choices about appropriate behavior during sad and/or stressful times. Children are provided with instruction about conversation skills. In this part of the training, there is an emphasis on ‘‘sharing the air,’’ ‘‘staying on the same page’’ with respect to context and topic, and ‘‘being honest.’’ The more subtle aspects of conversations, like taking turns in conversation, joining a conversation already underway, making comments, asking questions of others, using nonverbal indicators to express interest, and choosing appropriate topics, are included.

Sessions 6 – 10 include lessons about friendship, teasing, and bullying. Group and individual problem solving skills are taught. Some of the skills involved in problem solving are problem identification and prioritization, generation of feasible alternative strategies, and the evaluation of individual strategies. The focus is on the development of practical solutions, coping mechanisms, and self-control for these difficult interpersonal situations. These skills are taught, practiced, and reinforced through the use of a visual template, games, and role-playing activities. Perspective taking and empathy training are included, requiring the children to act out situations in which different people think different things or have different underlying motives.

Parent Group

Parent groups are jointly educational and supportive, with the goals of enlisting parents as co-teachers of the curriculum. Parent sessions start with a discussion of the elements of each lesson plan, and an explanation of the rationale behind the lesson.

4. The Body Project

Backed by two decades of research and evaluation data, the Body Project is a group-based intervention that provides a forum for women and girls to confront unrealistic beauty ideals and engages them in the development of healthy body image through verbal, written, and behavioral exercises. The Body Project was developed by researchers at Stanford University, the University of Texas at Austin, and Oregon Research Institute, and has been delivered to over one million young women around the world.
The conceptual basis for the Body Project is that if girls and young women voluntarily argue against the societal appearance-ideal, this will result in a reduced subscription to this ideal and to consequent decreases in eating disorder risk factors and eating disordered behaviors.

Although the Body Project focuses on helping girls and young women resist the societal pressures placed on them to achieve the “appearance ideal”, the group is open to anyone regardless of their sex, gender, or gender identity.

Please contact PSC at 315.443.3595 for more information.

The Psychological Services Center (PSC) adheres to the ethical guidelines of the American Psychological Association, including strictly respecting your rights to confidentiality. However, you should be aware that there can be certain circumstances under which your rights to confidentiality may be overridden by a conflicting legal or ethical duty: 1) when there is significant risk of harm to yourself or another person; 2) when we learn of current child neglect or abuse; or 3) if we are ordered to surrender records by a judge to a court of law.

All psychotherapy sessions are video or audiotaped to aid supervision and to improve the quality of care. Recordings are held in strict confidence, and they are erased promptly after being used for training and supervision purposes.

The Department of Psychology values the integration of science with the practice of psychology. To this end, we often conduct research on a variety of topics through our work with clients at the Psychological Services Center (PSC). Therefore, as a client you may be asked to participate in one or more research studies. Participation is voluntary and not required to receive services at PSC.