The Pacific Psychology and Comprehensive Health Clinics of Pacific University’s School of Graduate Psychology offers a 2000 hour, one-year, full-time, doctoral internship to prepare qualified graduate students for entry-level practice in clinical psychology. We do not accept part-time interns. The internship starts late July, which allows for an overlap with outgoing interns to provide a thorough two-week orientation process and streamlines client transfers. Our interns get approximately six weeks off throughout the year as well as release time for dissertation defense, graduation, and seeking the next position. Our internship starts July 19, 2024, and ends on August 8, 2025. Interns work 45 hours per week, which includes at least one evening (until 8pm).
PCH Internship’s Mission - To prepare interns for entry-level work as clinical psychologists competent to provide assessment, therapy, and outreach in a culturally responsive manner. As Health Service Psychologists, our graduating interns have the foundational skills to work interprofessionally with a variety of healthcare settings.
PCH Clinics’ and Internship’s Diversity Mission - The PCH clinics embrace the diversity embodied within each individual and acknowledges group differences. We strive to provide culturally responsive and evidenced based services in a safe and affirming space. Our clinicians, supervisors, and staff are committed to the promotion and affirmation of diversity in its broadest sense. We recognize that prejudice and discrimination based on sex, gender identity and expression, ethnicity, race, sexual/affectional orientation, age, physical and mental abilities, size, religious beliefs, and socioeconomic class, have historically impacted mental health practices, both in terms of defining mental health issues as well as in the provision of care that is informed by cultural awareness and identity-affirmation. Prejudice and discrimination are incompatable with the professional ethics of a clinical psychologist, the PCH clinics’ commitment to social justice, and they are detrimental to the practice of psychotherapy, assessment, outreach, integrated care, and interprofessional collaborations.
For the 24/25 training year, there will be two tracks: Adult Track (#1526-12) will have three slots and Youth and Family Track (#1526-13) will have one slot. Adult Track interns provide therapy and psychological assessment to adults and older adolescents. We prefer a minimum of 400 intervention and 100 assessment hours, with at least 50% of hours accrued with adult clients. Youth and Family Track interns will be placed on a child therapy and assessment teams. Based on client demands, the youth/family intern may have a few adult clients on their caseloads. We prefer a minimum of 400 intervention and 100 assessment hours, with at least 50% of hours accrued with youth and family clients.
Interns will receive training in ten competency domains: intervention, assessment, interprofessional collaboration, consultation, supervision, community outreach, diversity, practitioner-scholar methodology, professionalism, and ethical practice. Intern supervisors work from a variety of frameworks such as CBT, DBT, ACT, Integrated CBT, and Mindfulness-based CBT. We do not supervise Psychoanalytic, Jungian, or Gestalt.
Pacific University has two training clinics, one in downtown Portland and one in Hillsboro. Interns may work from one or both clinics, depending upon supervisor assignments. All interns are in the Portland clinic for training seminars. These seminars include diversity, interprofessional collaboration, community outreach, along with professional development and self-care. Approximately 20% of interns' workload is spent in supervision and training.
Our ideal interns have developed intermediate competency with therapy and assessment and are eager to learn more. Additionally, qualities of ideal interns are:
- Self-directed while being an active team member
- Knows their strengths while still being humble
- Self-aware and works well in a fast-paced environment with many facets
- Committed to being the best psychologists while maintaining a sense of humor
- Interested in a variety of roles psychologist can play, beyond clinical services, including outreach, interprofessional training, and interventions, teaching, etc.