Psychology Internship

 

Two rotations are required: inpatient psychiatry and clinical health psychology. During orientation, interns will have the opportunity to learn more details about their options for selecting two additional rotations:

This system allows interns some latitude to customize their training sequence to best fit their professional goals and anticipated career trajectory.

For in-depth rotation descriptions and schedules, download our full program brochure.

Interns receive four hours per week of clinical supervision. Two hours come from individual, face-to-face supervision, and two additional hours come in the form of proctored case presentations and group supervision provided weekly during didactic time.

Additional supervision is integrated into daily participation in rotation activities, such as debriefing after group therapy on the psychiatric inpatient unit or discussing a case consultation from the medical-surgical hospital.

Interns are closely supervised in every aspect of the skills pertinent to professional psychology, including assessment, intervention, consultation and ethics. Supervision includes discussion of theoretical, conceptual, clinical, ethical, empirical and practical dimensions of work with patients.

Interns are expected to regularly present videotaped examples of their evaluation and therapy sessions during supervision. This practice enables supervisors to make an accurate appraisal of the intern’s skill level and provide the most helpful, in depth suggestions for improvement. Supervisors allow interns more independence and self-direction as their skills develop.

Case presentations are made by a designated faculty member or intern and allow the non-presenting interns to function as a simulated supervisor or consultant to help build important competencies in these domains.

Group supervision allows for a wide-ranging discussion of pertinent professional topics and permits flexibility for interns or the training staff to introduce a variety of issues, including clinical matters, ethics, professional practices and multi-cultural awareness. Typically, group supervision is jump-started with a challenging case or by identification of an ethical or practice dilemma encountered in the course of everyday clinical work. The spontaneity and richness of these exchanges prove to be stimulating both for faculty and interns. Group supervision is intended to foster an attitude of curiosity and inculcate a habit of seeking peer consultation that will serve interns well in their subsequent professional endeavors.

Didactic training occurs weekly on Monday afternoons when interns and their faculty mentors meet for four hours of training. Training includes a clinical case presentation with discussion, group and a didactic seminar topic.

Our program holds routine didactic seminars to convey information pertinent to professional practice over a broad spectrum of topics, including:

Toward the end of the training year, interns present a topic of their choice as an exercise in teaching psychology. In addition, the schedule can accommodate topics according to the specific training needs/requests of the current intern class.

The psychology staff – including training faculty, postdoctoral fellows and interns – meets once a month for a vertically integrated psychology case conference. Faculty and trainees take turns presenting a case with some unique or challenging aspects for the entire group to process and discuss. Special efforts are made to include a faculty member from a training site beyond the outpatient mental health center on the Temple campus to provide a more diversified discussion. This forum offers interns the opportunity to hear senior staff members actively formulate case understanding, utilize theory and offer suggestions as to the most effective treatment strategies. Because theoretical conceptualizations can differ and alternate treatment courses can be charted, interns are exposed to multiple approaches to a single problem.

Interns are required to attend Department of Psychiatry & Behavioral Science Grand Rounds, typically scheduled biweekly from September through May. Interns also attend multidisciplinary training conferences associated with their clinical rotations such as journal club, consultation-liaison case conferences, quality improvement initiatives and ethics conferences. Other selected training opportunities may occur as well, such as continuing medical education conferences.

Clinical activities by faculty of the Baylor Scott & White Health Psychology Internship Program in Health Service Psychology occur against a backdrop of active participation in ongoing research and scholarly investigation aimed at contributing to the scientific basis of psychology.

In addition to the option for a research rotation, some provision is made for interns to spend time on dissertation-related research during the training year. Interns who have already completed their dissertation and who demonstrate an aptitude for empirical research may choose to become involved with faculty projects or conduct pilot studies under the aegis of the training staff.

Interns have access to Baylor Scott & White Health’s computers for clinical as well as research purposes. In addition, our campus features the Richard D. Haines Medical Library, an extraordinary collection of print and electronic materials which, through its affiliation with the Texas A&M University, affords access to almost any medical and/or social sciences-related material.