Pitt HomeFind PeopleContact Us
Pitt student Pitt students Pitt friends Pitt students Pitt student Pitt student

 

Pre-Doctoral Internships

Letter from the Training Director The Setting The Training Program

Stipends & Benefits To Apply Staff Profiles

The Training Program

Training Philosophy and Model

Our training program is based on a developmental, apprenticeship model. The developmental value is built into all of our training components. We provide an experience whereby interns gain autonomy as they further their competence and confidence in their work. Our goal is that by the end of internship, interns have solidified their identity as entry level professionals with a commitment to ethical practice that is sensitive to individual differences.

Direct Service Experience

Individual & Couples Counseling

Most clients are served through brief therapy although our counseling center does not have a session limit. Interns work with a diverse student population as our clients include non-traditional age students, international students, racial, cultural and sexual minorities, and students with disabilities. In addition to individual therapy the Center also provides relationship counseling for gay, lesbian, and heterosexual couples. A typical intern case load is 14-17 client contact hours per week.

Intake Service

Interns will conduct clinical intake interviews. The number of intakes each week depend on the time of year, but generally varies from 2-4 and would rarely exceed five. Interns will conduct clinical interviews, write up intake reports, and conduct ongoing assessments as they formulate conceptualizations of clients' concerns.

Group Counseling

The Center's group therapy program includes psychotherapy, theme-centered, and support groups. Examples of groups recently offered include interpersonal process groups, a grief group, a sexual abuse recovery support group, and a GLBT Graduate support group. Interns are expected to co-lead one group during the year with a senior staff member. Supervision for group therapy is provided in a group format that includes interns and their senior staff co-leaders. Interns also receive individual supervision from their co-leader.

Crisis Intervention

Crisis intervention at the Center covers a wide range of situations from working with an angry or upset student to facilitating hospitalization as needed. Crisis intervention also may involve working with a group of students who have experienced a trauma such as the sudden death of a classmate. The Center staff works closely with the Office of Residence Life and the campus Police in handling mental health emergencies.

In addition to handling their own clients' crises, interns provide crisis intervention in two ways. First, interns cover one emergency hour per week. Interns are given increased autonomy as they gain the requisite competencies to deal with a wide range of urgent and emergency situations. Second, interns are paired with a supervisor for after-hours on-call approximately once every ten weeks. Interns are given increased responsibility for on-call as the year progresses with the goal that they will have primary responsibility for a week of on-call by the end of the year. Through the year interns gain experience in assessing for suicidality, screening for hospitalization, and other emergency functions of counseling center psychologists.

Consultation & Outreach

The Counseling Center staff is consulted by offices and departments within the University for programming on mental health issues and provides consultation on student-related problems for faculty and staff. Consultation and outreach are important aspects of the Center's many services and interns actively participate in both the planning and delivery of these services.

Interns and staff provide consultation to various departments that request the Center's services and participate in the training of Student Affairs staff on psychological issues. Each intern serves as a liaison to a Residence Hall or Residence Hall Cluster to provide support and some programming for Residence Life Staff and residents. In addition, the Center offers several workshops to the student community each term. These workshops cover wide-ranging topics, including public speaking anxiety, procrastination, assertiveness training, and coping with the end of a relationship.

The Counseling Center also has several undergraduate Mental Health Peer Educators who provide various workshops and outreach services to the student community. Interns may be involved in training the Peer Educators and collaborating with them on various outreach projects. All aspects of the consultation and outreach program are facilitated in a group format by the Consultation and Outreach Coordinators.

Top

Supervision and Training Seminars

Supervision of Individual Therapy

Supervision at the Center is designed so that interns have exposure to a number of different staff members during their internship year. Each intern has two individual supervisors throughout the year; each provides one hour of supervision weekly, covering half of the intern's caseload. The primary supervisor will stay the same the entire year; the secondary supervisor will switch half way through the internship. During orientation, interns have the opportunity to meet with all supervisory staff. When supervisory assignments are made, intern's preferences are given consideration.

Intake/Conceptualization/Urgency Seminar

Learning how to effectively obtain and integrate clinical information from the initial interview into meaningful conceptualization and treatment planning is an important part of the internship experience. As part of the ICU Seminar, interns will be presented with a didactic introduction to the clinical interview, to frequently used assessment instruments, and to common DSM-IV diagnostic categories for the college population. Interns will also have intensive training on crisis intervention skills and will be responsible for weekly crisis/urgency intervention service hours.

Multicultural Case Conference

Multicultural supervision is provided in a group format throughout the internship year. The aim of this supervision is to develop interns' skills, sensitivity, and awareness regarding individual differences, diversity, and multicultural issues in group process. This is provided through a combination of didactic training, self-exploration, and case discussion.

Case Consultation

The bi-monthly case consultation meeting provides an opportunity for interns to discuss their clinical work with one another and to hone their case presentation skills. The format is a combination of informal consultation and more formalized case presentations, using a developmental model.

Professional Practice Seminar

A two-hour professional practice seminar is held throughout the Fall and Spring semesters. Senior staff and guest mental health professionals present seminars on topics of interest to clinicians.

Professional Identity Seminar

The professional identity seminar offers a supportive environment for voicing concerns about immediate academic/professional issues while also providing practice opportunities in the areas of resume writing, cover letters, interviewing, presentation skills, dissertation progress, networking, and telephone conferencing. Other topics of discussion focus on the transition from intern to professional and have included networking, dual career issues, and non-traditional careers.

Optional Supervision of Practicum Students

Interns have the option of supervising practicum students from the Master's Program in Rehabilitation Counseling during the summer term. Interns develop and facilitate a counseling skills training seminar and provide individual supervision.

Optional Concentrated Experiences

In addition to the broad based generalist training provided to all interns, there is the opportunity for interns to complete a concentrated experience in a specialty area. The concentration will consist of a combination of didactic and experiential training activities that are designed to provide the intern with additional expertise in the service area. Concentrated experiences offered in 2005-2006 included:

  • Sexual Assault Prevention & Treatment - Opportunities available to the intern who chooses this specialization area may include, but are not limited to:
    • Clinical and Didactic supervision for clinical cases around sexual assault/abuse
    • Increased consultation and outreach activities on topics pertinent to sexual assault
    • Involvement in the Peer Education Program
  • Substance Abuse Assessment and Treatment - Opportunities available to the intern who chooses this specialization area may include, but are not limited to:
    • Clinical and Didactic supervision for clinical cases for clients presenting with substance use/abuse concerns
    • Assessment of students referred by the University Judicial Board
  • Eating Disorder Assessment and Treatment - Opportunities contained in this specialty area may include, but are not limited to:
    • Eating disorder assessment and consultation
    • Work as part of multidisciplinary treatment team including, nutritionist, psychiatrist, physicians and health care workers
    • Increased consultation and outreach activities on topics pertinent to eating disorder and body image concerns

We are in the process of creating additional concentrated experience for the 2009-2010 year with a focus on Multicultural Consultation and Outreach. This experience will be geared towards providing outreach and other services to University of Pittsburgh's diverse community. This could include collaborative programming with both the Cross Cultural and Leadership Development and International Student Services Offices. Interns may also develop more informal areas of concentration that reflect service to the campus community.

Top

Course of Training

Orientation

Training begins with three weeks of orientation to the Center. During this period, interns become acquainted with the staff, setting, and Center policies and procedures. Clinical case loads will slowly be built during this period as students begin to return to campus from their summer breaks.

Intern Training Schedule 2007-2008
Monday 11:00 am - 12:00 pm Professional Identity Seminar
second and fourth Mondays of each month during fall and spring term		 Kevin Bursley, PhD
Tuesday 10:00 - 11:00 am Group Supervision of Groups
weekly during the fall and spring terms		 Kathy Whittaker, PhD
11:00 am- 12:00 pm Intake/Conceptualization/Urgency Seminar
weekly during fall term		 Joellen Popma, PhD & Noreen Zaman
Wednesday 9:00 - 10:00 am Staff Meetings & Case Conference
twice monthly during fall and spring terms		 James Cox, LCSW
10:00 - 11:00 am Multicultural Case Conference
weekly during fall term and bi-weekly during spring term		 Iru Brodie-Mends, LCSW Hyunok Kim, MS
1:00 - 3:00 pm Professional Practice Seminar
Weekly in September and January, monthly through the remainder of fall and spring terms		 Teddy Fakles, MEd, LPC
1:00 - 2:00 pm Consultation/Outreach Seminar
second and fourth Wednesday of each month during the fall and spring term		 Iru Brodie-Mends, LCSW Jamie Bromley, PhD & Dawn Long, PsyD
1:00 - 2:00 pm Case Consultation Seminar
second and fourth Wednesday of each month during the fall and spring term		 JamieBromley, PhD
Friday 9:00-10:00am

Full Staff Urgent Case Consultation weekly all year

 James Cox, LCSW


Weekly Intern Activity Profile* Fall Hours Spring Hours
Individual Counseling 12-14 14-16
Group Counseling 2 2
Intake Service 2-4 2-4
Emergency/Urgency Services 1+ 1+
Staff Meetings 0.5 0.5
Individual Supervision 2 2
Supervision of Groups 1 1
Multicultural Case Conference 1 1
Professional Practice Seminar 0.5-2.0 0.5-2.0
Intake/Consultation/Urgency Seminar 1 0
Consultation/Outreach Seminar 0.5 0.5
Professional Identity Seminar 0.5 0.5
Case Consultation Seminar 1 1
Administrative Record Keeping 4 4
Consultation/Outreach Varied Varied
Area of Concentration 0 Varied
Counseling Center Projects Varied Varied
Prep Time for Seminars/C&O Varied Varied
*Average Number of Hours

Other Professional Development Opportunities

Interns may use some of their 20 days of release time for professional development release time for dissertation related activities, to attend conferences or other workshops and seminars, and for job search related activities. The 20 days are also for vacation and sick time.

Evaluation & Feedback

Bi-directional, ongoing feedback and evaluation are considered to be important parts of the internship program. Feedback to interns is given in weekly supervision sessions and in regularly scheduled evaluation meetings throughout the internship year. The interns meet with the Training Director regularly during the year to provide their suggestions and comments about the training program.

Top

Top

You are using an older browser that does not support current Web standards. Although this site is viewable in all browsers, it will look much better in a browser that supports Web standards.