Central Alabama Veterans Health Care System (CAVHCS) Doctoral Internship in Clinical Psychology provides a broad and integrated 12-month internship, conducted on a full-time basis (2080 hours). The internship begins mid-July each year.
The Psychology Internship is offered to foster the interest and skills of future psychologists to provide high quality services to Veterans across levels of care, and to enrich our programs through infusion of advanced trainees throughout the hospital. The aim of our Psychology Internship is to prepare doctoral interns for successful entry into postdoctoral or entry-level professional positions, particularlyl in Veteran Health Care and Public Sector Health Care Settings, as well as private health care settings and private practice. The Psychology Department aims to educate clinicians toward the highest standards of clinical practice consistent with local, state, and national regulatory agencies and professional organizations; empirically supported treatment processes; and transformation, recovery-oriented, humanistic and existential perspectives and standards of care. In addition, this aim includes professional identity development.
Our Training Program is unique in that it provides intensive, direct clinical service working within multi-disciplinary teams, across all levels of care, with Veterans at all levels of functioning and across all stages of change. Psychology Interns provide a range of services, including diagnostic interviews, intervention planning, individual and group therapy, milieu therapy, and ongoing collaoration of care within interdisciplinary teams.
Each Psychology Intern provides clinical services as part of interdisciplinary treatment teams in acute inpatient psychiatry, residential rehabilitation, and outpatient programs. These clinical activities include individual and group therapy, participation and interventions in the milieu, team meetings, psychological testing/consultation, therapeutic community meetings, staff training, and program development. In addition to these clinical activities, Psychology Interns participate in program evaluation and briefings regarding clinical metrics, and they participate in a core curriculum of seminar and supervision, including didactics, case conference, and supervision.