Our program was developed in keeping with a clinician-scholar model and is currently evolving to be more in keeping with a scientist-practitioner model. The program emphasizes the importance of honing critical thinking skills, reading and evaluating the current empirical literature, integrating scientific attitudes and methods into clinical work and continuing to engage in scholarly inquiry. We believe that professional development is best served by immersion in clinical service and intensive training and supervision, combined with intimate familiarity with the empirical literature. In our view, well-trained clinicians are prepared to be sophisticated consumers of, and possibly contributors to, psychological research literature. Thus, the scientific bases of professional psychology are an inherent part of our rotations and seminars; we attempt to integrate the practice of psychology with its scientific underpinnings.

We believe that a broad training in psychology is necessary for competence as a practicing psychologist. We assume that interns enter our program with a solid background in a variety of clinical settings, and some experience in psychological research. Our goal is to serve as a bridge between graduate training and professional practice. We accomplish this by providing clinical experiences with a wide variety of patients, treated with a number of different intervention techniques,, clinical and theoretical presentations that vary widely in approach , and by providing intensively supervised experience in a high-quality, multi-disciplinary behavioral health organization. We view our primary responsibility as training highly competent clinicians who will be able to provide a full range of evidence-based, outcomes-informed professional psychological services to a clinically diverse patient population.

We emphasize an individualized, personal and collaborative approach to training that blends immersion in the clinical setting with appropriate guidance and structure. Interns are viewed as integral members of a highly experienced, multi-disciplinary treatment team, and are included in staff meetings and case discussions. We strongly encourage interns to take an active role in program and curriculum development, and have worked hard to cultivate an atmosphere in which interns’ suggestions and observations about our service delivery system are seriously considered. Training must serve interns’ professional development, not only by fostering the development of clinical competencies basic to professional psychology, but by instilling trainees with the skills and attitudes expected of well qualified, humane and ethical professional psychologists. We carefully consider interns’ level of skill development in designating clinical assignments, and tailor their internship experiences to meet their clinical interests and further their professional development.