Welcome to the Pre-Doctoral Internship Program in clinical psychology in the Behavioral Health Department at Carle Foundation Hospital. The current year (2021-2022) is the ninth year that we are sponsoring a pre-doctoral psychology internship. We are excited that you are interested in our program. We have been accredited by the American Psychological Association since March 22, 2016. The Behavioral Health Department is multidisciplinary and a part of an integrated health care system at Carle Foundation Hospital and work with health care practitioners and teams throughout the hospital, including primary care, medical specialties, and hospital services. Our behavioral health team consists of 12 clinical psychologists, 12 psychiatrists, 6 psychiatric nurse practitioners, 3 addiction medicine physicians, 5 addiction counselors, 25 social workers and counselors, and 2 psychometrists. We are also affiliated with the University of Illinois College of Medicine at Urbana-Champaign & the Carle Illinois College of Medicine and have a psychiatry residency program with 16 psychiatry residents in training currently.
Our pre-doctoral internship program’s goal is to train clinical psychologists under a scientist-practitioner model emphasizing evidence-based assessment and treatment. Interns will be provided with two possible tracks in adult or generalist (50% adult, 50% child/adolescent). Each track is a yearlong intensive outpatient clinical training at Carle Behavioral Health. All tracks will work with a full spectrum of psychopathology either in adults and/or children/adolescents and provide assessment and treatment. Trainee assessment experiences include training and experience in Structural Clinical Interview for DSM-V Disorders (SCID-V), psychological testing (e.g., neurodevelopmental disorders like ADHD, learning disabilities, autism spectrum disorders), conducting assessments through the Child Diagnostic Clinic which is a comprehensive, integrated care team assessing children and adolescents across many domains of functioning in home, school, social environments; and experience in adult bariatric evaluations. Treatment consists of primarily individual psychotherapy that can include members of the family, with a variety of evidence-based treatment modalities (e.g., variety of CBT treatment techniques, psycho-education, problem-solving, goal setting, relaxation training, Dialectical Behavior Therapy, Motivational Interviewing, Interpersonal Psychotherapy, Trauma-Based-CBT). Effort is directed to help interns match cases with supervisors (e.g., supervisors designated for short-term, time-limited treatment, other supervisors for longer-term dynamically-oriented therapy) as we have a diverse and a highly trained faculty.
Interns will work individuals and families that are typically uninsured or underinsured. A typical week would include 50% direct face-to-face patient contact and the remaining 50% would be devoted to didactics, supervision, and all other aspects of patient care that are not face-to-face hours (e.g., case management, group consultation, treatment planning, charting, report writing). Learning would take place through individual supervision (i.e., 2 hours/week), additional supervision (e.g., group supervision 2 hours/week), supervised report writing, didactic seminars (i.e., 2 hours/week), and clinical evaluations.
Applicants who are interested in becoming a member of a multidisciplinary integrated health care system, seeking an outpatient experience in their training year, are encouraged to apply.