Essentia Health is a not-for-profit health system with more than 70 clinics and 14 hospitals across Wisconsin, Minnesota, and North Dakota. Essentia’s mission is “We are called to make a healthy difference in people’s lives”. The Psychology Internship Program supports that mission by preparing new clinicians for practice in a setting that values justice, teamwork, hospitality, quality, respect, stewardship, and joy in our work.

PIPEH will offer three positions for the 2025-2026 training year; two in our adult track and one in our child and adolescent track. These are full-time, one year internships equivalent to just over 2000 training hours. The purpose of the program is to prepare interns with the skills and knowledge to join the workforce as early career health service psychologists, so that they can continue to make a healthy difference in people’s lives.

Interns will receive experience in core clinical services at a variety of levels of care. All interns will provide outpatient psychotherapy and psychological evaluations to patients in the Behavioral Health Department on the Duluth campus. Interns in the adult track will complete a placement in a higher level of care at a partial hospitalization program and/or on the inpatient consultation team. The intern in the child/adolescent track will complete a placement in a higher level of care at the partial hospital program. All work sites are located within Duluth, MN or Superior, WI (just across the bridge).

Interns will hone their skills in assessment, therapeutic intervention, interdisciplinary consultation, and teamwork. Interns will provide individual psychotherapy, group psychotherapy, diagnostic assessments, and psychological evaluations. All interns will also participate on multi-disciplinary teams in the partial hospital and outpatient behavioral health settings. Interns participate in both broad and focused consultation groups, including interest groups such as high-risk patients, psychological testing, and interventions for trauma related disorders. 

Psychologists in departments including Behavioral Health, Neurology, Health Psychology, and Rehabilitation Services participate in didactic training, giving interns an understanding of a health system. Didactic training also covers information about licensure in Minnesota and Wisconsin and an overview of the National Health Service Corps loan repayment program, for which Essentia maintains many eligible sites. 

During the second half of the internship year, interns may choose to gain experience in health psychology, rehabilitation psychology, or consult-liaison psychology by spending up to two days per week providing services in those departments and obtaining supervision from a provider in that specialty. 

The Psychology Internship Program at Essentia Health has submitted a self-study as part of our work toward accreditation. 

Duluth is a port city located on the shore of Lake Superior. Four-season outdoor recreational activities include hiking, mountain biking, skiing, camping, and fishing. In the winter, enjoy University of Minnesota- Duluth hockey and one of the largest walk-through Christmas light displays in the Midwest. In the summer, visit the many local breweries, sit by the lake for many music festivals, or watch thousand-foot cargo ships pass under the Arial Lift Bridge.