https://www.suffolk.edu/student-life/health-wellness/counseling-services/psychology-training-programs
The Counseling, Health, & Wellness Center (CHW) provides comprehensive counseling services within an integrated setting providing medical, counseling, and wellness education services to all Suffolk students. The Center maintains a focus on health rather than on pathology. Clients are regarded as functional individuals who have problems, with a strong emphasis placed on their resilience, strengths, and resources when resolving issues brought to the therapeutic relationship. This health perspective is representative of the manner in which interns are selected and trained.
CHW as a whole is committed to creating and maintaining a welcoming and supportive environment that affirms our multicultural community of students and staff. Every effort is made to hire staff and to select interns that represent various backgrounds and perspectives and to attend to the role of sociocultural identities and individual differences throughout all CHW activities (See CHW’s Commitment to Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion).
The Doctoral Internship provides supervised experiences and training activities provided in an atmosphere of dynamic personal and professional growth. The training program is specifically designed to offer a wide variety of opportunities to help interns begin functioning as autonomous professional psychologists, including clinical service, consultation, outreach, training, supervision, and professional development. The Internship Program is rooted by three overarching Training Aims:
- Prepare doctoral interns for entry-level practice in the provision of professional psychological services within integrated counseling and health centers in higher education.
- Increase knowledge, skills, and awareness regarding multicultural competence, interpersonal sociocultural differences, and individual identity as they relate to all aspects of professional practice, with a focus on social justice.
- Assist in the development of an integrated personal and professional identity based in the application of scientific knowledge, professional values and ethics, and with attention to the power of authenticity.
The Internship Program utilizes a Practitioner-Scholar model (Ellis, 1992), maintaining a commitment to developing interns as "local clinical scientists" (Stricker and Trierweiler, 1995). The "local" focus reinforces the importance of translating and applying empirical scientific work to specific contexts, in this case a university setting. Empirical and theoretical bases of assessment, intervention and consultation are taught via the Program’s ongoing didactic seminars, and training staff place a high value on critical thinking skills in the evaluation and integration of new information by Doctoral Interns. The program utilizes a developmental approach to learning, a mentorship model of professional development, and a systemic understanding of psychology service delivery.
The developmental approach provides graduated learning opportunities whereby interns are expected to function with an increasingly higher level of autonomy, skill and responsibility across the year. Interns are supported by training and supervising staff through developmental transitions from student/learner in the classroom, to learner/practitioner in the field, and to entry-level professional psychologist. This process helps to foster the integration of skills with the underlying theory, research, and scientific content that leads to a high standard of professional practice.
Through mentorship, the program fosters a welcoming environment in which supportive and growth-fostering relationships are formed between senior staff and interns. Training staff uniformly believe that the establishment of authentic supervisory/mentorship relationships form the cornerstone from which interns can best expand their clinical, scientific, consultative, and professional knowledge, become socialized into the profession, and increase the depth and complexity of their thinking about clients, themselves, and relevant professional issues.
Training staff also continually examine issues with a multi-system perspective, with special attention to the role of sociocultural identities and social justice. Interns are encouraged to incorporate an understanding of how various sociocultural systems or identities may be influencing client needs, professional relationships, clinical interactions and decisions, or the role of psychologists within the larger local, national, and global context.
Ellis, H. C. "Graduate Education in Psychology: Past, Present, and Future," American Psychologist, April 1992, 570-576.
Stricker, G. and Trierweiler, St. "The Local Clinical Scientist: A Bridge between Science and Practice", American Psychologist, 1995, Vol. 50, No. 12, 995-1002