The following is excerpted from the full Training Manual of the Buffalo State University Counseling Center health psychology internship program. The full Training Manual and more is available at our program’s website: https://counseling.buffalostate.edu/training-program
The Buffalo State Doctoral Internship Program provides supervised experience in individual therapy, group counseling, crisis intervention, outreach programming, and consultation. Emphasis is on brief psychotherapy, including screening assessments, initial assessment interviews, group counseling, college developmental and educational issues, responding to trauma, and multiculturalism. The internship at Buffalo State is designed to provide supervised experiences in those activities which reflect the functioning of a psychologist in a college or university counseling center.
Beyond the core competencies, we believe that training should be tailored to the individual experience and needs of each trainee. Clinicians at the center utilize interventions from a variety of theoretical orientations, including psychodynamic, cognitive-behavioral, multicultural, interpersonal, and humanistic. Thus, an intern has the opportunity to be exposed to a wide range of theories and interventions while developing their own individual therapeutic style.
The Counseling Center staff is dedicated to the concept of excellence in a training experience within a multifaceted, service-oriented agency. While broad exposure to a variety of professional activities is advocated, a genuine commitment to intensive supervision and to the furthering of the intern’s personal and professional growth exists as the foundation of our philosophy. Overall, we seek to create an atmosphere of respect and trust where trainees and professional staff support their own and each other’s growth both personally and professionally.
The overall goal of the SUNY Buffalo State University Counseling Center Internship in Health Psychology, in collaboration with “home” academic programs, is to produce professionals who are ready to embark on their next steps as early-career psychologists. To do this, we provide interns with structured and scaffolded training and experiences.
As outlined by the APA Standards of Accreditation (SoA), the internship program is designed to prepare emerging psychologists in nine profession-wide competencies (PWC) (available here: https://www.apa.org/ed/accreditation/standards-of-accreditation.pdf ) through related training and service delivery activities. Students must demonstrate competence in:
- Research
- Ethical and legal standards
- Individual and cultural diversity
- Professional values, attitudes, and behaviors
- Communication and interpersonal skills
- Assessment
- Intervention
- Supervision
- Consultation and interprofessional/interdisciplinary skills
Each PWC is defined [in our training manual] within the context of the BSU Counseling Center, informing interns how these skills are taught and evaluated during the internship program. The expectations for the quantity of the intern’s work and the expectations for successful completion of the training program are described for each PWC and the work activities outlined in Part 2: Intern Schedule (e.g. Intern Seminars and Case Disposition meetings are weekly, Formal Case Presentations are semesterly, etc.). Interns’ work in each area should start at a quality appropriate to the high level of graduate training that one completes prior to internship (assessed via recommendation letters and Director of Clinical Training approval), but is expected to be variable based on previous experiences and growth opportunities. Interns are expected to be collaborative in defining growth goals, and remain open and responsive to training and feedback throughout their internship year, culminating in quality that is appropriate for embarking on their next steps as early-career psychologists.
