Predoctoral Internship in Professional Psychology

Training Program: Supervision & Seminars

The experiential aspect of interns' training represents half of the core learning process and is complemented with reflection upon these experiences. It is in this way that the ongoing, bi-directional relationship between theory and practice is emphasized.

The training experiences are designed such that interns have the opportunity to work with different senior staff and different approaches to clinical and consultation work. Interns are expected to participate in supervisory experiences, didactic training, case conferences and professional development activities as part of their training.

Two essential themes are woven throughout the training experiences as core to the development of competent psychologists:

1. Integration of science and practice
2. Integration of cultural and individual diversity issues within practice

With regard to integration of diversity issues and practice, interns are consistently encouraged to consider the influence of clients and supervisees' cultural backgrounds as well as potentially relevant group norms.

Further, they are asked to reflect upon their own cultural backgrounds and assumptions, and the ways in which these might intersect with those of clients. In addition, attention is given to diversifying intern caseloads along a variety of dimensions (e.g., gender, ethnicity, race, age, socioeconomic status, sexual orientation).

Thus, in supervision and seminars, interns are challenged to continually revise and deepen their conceptualizations by integrating factors of theoretical orientation, research findings and observations made in clinical practice so as to include issues of individual and cultural diversity.

1. Orientation

   The internship year begins with one week of orientation. Orientation to a complex organization is an ongoing process, and interns are encouraged to consult with and raise questions with senior staff and support staff during the week and after. In particular, given our mentoring approach to learning, interns are encouraged to discuss issues with their primary supervisors.

   The formal orientation is designed to welcome interns and begin to integrate them into the MU Counseling Center. Interns are introduced to the Counseling Center mission, the multiple ways in which the Counseling Center serves the campus community, and the ways in which interns will become part of the professional staff. Specifically, they are introduced to the assessment and client flow processes, crisis services and documentation protocols of the Center as well as the other Counseling Center services (e.g., group program, programming and consultation, employee assistance program, testing services). Additionally, interns receive their supervision assignments, and they meet one-on-one with both their primary supervisor and the Training Director (TD) to get acquainted.

2. Intensive Summer Training

   Immediately following the week of orientation, interns receive two weeks of intensive training on special population issues relevant to work within a university counseling center. In addition, seminars on clinical interviewing and specific treatment modalities are provided. Each morning during this intensive training, the intern group meets with the TD to facilitate reflection on experiences, integration into the organization and discussion of professional issues.

   While this intensive training is seen as necessary, we also recognize it is not sufficient. As such, interns receive on-going training and supervision in these areas throughout the year from their supervisors. Also, interns are encouraged to pursue additional readings based on issues encountered in practice and consultation with supervisors.

   To orient interns to the campus community and facilitate awareness of themselves in the context of organizational culture, interns are also introduced to individuals and agencies outside the Counseling Center with whom they are likely to interact in the course of their internship year (e.g., Student Health Services, Wellness Resource Center, Disability Services, Student Success Center, Residential Life, Student Life, Office of Multicultural Affairs).

   These contacts also serve to experientially introduce the interns to the importance of on-going collaboration with campus departments, especially within Student Affairs. In addition, interns are taken on a guided tour of relevant agencies on campus and within Columbia to orient them to the resources available in the larger community.

3. Supervision

   Approximately 20% of interns' time is spent in receiving direct supervision.

   1. Individual Supervision (primary and case)

      In keeping with an instructional philosophy based on experiential learning through mentoring, interns receive intensive individual supervision throughout the internship year. In this context, interns are provided with both formative and summative feedback about their clinical work. Consistent with our goal of fostering professional identity development, interns also receive feedback during supervision about their professional comportment as members of an organizational system.

      Interns receive two hours per week of individual supervision from a primary supervisor and one hour per week from a case supervisor. Because it is assumed that development of an intern's competence and professional identity as a psychologist is best promoted in the context of close supervisory and consultative relationships with training faculty, mentoring is used as a core instructional strategy.

      In this context, training faculty gain multiple perspectives from which to individualize interns' evaluation and learning experiences with respect to both content area and degree of challenge, maximizing both intern success and learning. Further, in the context of mentoring relationships, supervisors guide interns in careful reflection about practice and assist them to extrapolate from specific challenges and dilemmas with individual cases to more general, albeit tentative, principles of practice. Ongoing communication among clinical supervisors in formal monthly meetings as well as informal interactions maximizes interns' opportunities to receive individualized and consistent input from multiple sources.

      Interns are asked about their training needs/goals and learning styles during orientation and this information is used by the Training Director and Training Committee when making supervisory assignments for fall semester. Interns meet with the Training Director at the end of the first semester and are asked to articulate their training needs/goals for the remainder of the internship year. The Training Committee makes final decisions for winter/summer supervision assignments based on each intern's training goals. The primary supervisor typically changes at midyear while the case supervisor often stays the same or the previous semester's primary supervisor becomes the case supervisor second semester to provide continuity.

   2. Supervision of Group Psychotherapy

      Interns are required to co-lead two groups, one of which is the multiple co-leader interpersonal process group. The multiple co-leader group oftentimes runs throughout the year with limited (2-3 weeks) breaks coinciding with the academic calendar (between semesters). Interns are supervised in this experience for one hour per week by two senior staff members who also serve as co-leaders for the group. For the second group experience, the intern dyad receives one hour of supervision per week provided by either a clinical professional or adjunct psychologist. In both group experiences, interns are encouraged to discuss issues relevant to individual clients within the group, group dynamics and development, previous group interventions, focus for future sessions and co-leader dynamics.

4. Professional Issues Seminar

   Professional Issues seminar meets for one hour each week and is led by the Training Director. It is intended to facilitate interns' professional identity development with respect to membership in:

   1. Immediate organizational milieu

   2. Broader institutional milieu

   3. Discipline of psychology

   Consistent with the intention of promoting reflective focus upon dimensions of the immediate organizational context, this seminar also represents an opportunity to spontaneously raise and/or discuss any issues which interns find to be impacting their training experiences.

   Planned topics include those selected based on intern interest, as well as those that are a standard part of the "Prosem" curriculum (e.g., job search). Occasionally, topics may be added that are necessary for remaining current in ongoing organizational changes (for example, orientation to a new database system).

   Interns are invited at the beginning of each semester to generate topics for consideration. Through readings, discussions, and presentations, interns are encouraged to see themselves as psychologists in the context of the agency, the institution, and the discipline.

5. Multicultural Seminar

   Multicultural Seminar meets weekly for one hour for one semester of the training year. This seminar addresses multiculturalism defined broadly (i.e., culture, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, religion, socio-economic status, functional limitations, etc.) and offers interns the opportunity to explore and discuss multiculturalism as it applies to their clinical work.

6. Case Consultation

   For one semester, Intern meets weekly for one hour with a member of the clinical professionals for case consultation. This consultation provides an opportunity to further facilitate the dialogue between articulated theory and practice. Each week a different clinical professional will present a client for “real time” consultation; that is, a current client for whom they would like assistance. This format offers interns an opportunity to become closely acquainted with the multiple ways in which other clinicians integrate theory and practice in a problem-based context of relevance and immediacy. Conversely, this format affords interns the benefit of multiple perspectives that enrich the input provided by primary and case supervisors.

7. General Staff Meetings

   General staff meetings (GSM) occur weekly and are dedicated to discussion of administrative and programmatic issues. Participation in staff meeting is intended to provide interns with an understanding of organizational issues within a university setting and an opportunity to move into a more collegial role with respect to the clinical professionals. In addition, one GSM per month is dedicated to professional development. Professionals from other agencies on campus, within the Columbia community and within our own Center, will present on a variety of topics over the course of the year.