The primary aim of the Rockland Psychiatric Center (RPC) Psychology Doctoral Internship Program is to provide interns with a comprehensive clinical training in evidence-based, culturally sensitive, individualized services to adults in order to become competent entry-level psychologists. The Psychology Doctoral Internship Program aligns with RPC's mission of providing Hope, Respect, and Recovery for individuals with mental illness.
The RPC Psychology Doctoral Internship Program subscribes to a Practitioner-Scholar Model. Our philosophy of training is to provide interns with the ability to apply the learned research-based practices and theoretical perspectives into clinical practice with adults who exhibit a wide-range of clinical diagnoses. Our primary goals are clinically focused and these are developed from the wealth of research and empirically-based treatments that inform our clinical practice. Our interns will be expected to become “consumers of research” and will be guided to apply what they learn into practice.
RPC is one of the largest psychiatric facilities in New York State . It is a New York State Office of Mental Health (NYS-OMH) inpatient and outpatient facility that provides compassionate and comprehensive care to adults who have serious and persistent mental illness. The Internship Program involves working with inpatient adults. RPC's average inpatient census is 325 patients. The RPC catchment area of patients served include New York City and seven counties in the Hudson Valley. Given the location and the vast geographical area, RPC serves patients from ethnically and socioeconomically diverse populations and provides services regardless of financial or immigration status.
Being one of the largest psychiatric facilities in NYS, RPC has over 1,000 employees serving both the inpatient and outpatient facilities. Given the geographic location and strong values for diversity, RPC currently employs a diverse workforce. As such, RPC is a welcoming learning environment for all interns and welcomes applicants from all backgrounds.
In addition, RPC’s Doctoral Internship Program goal is to train interns how to develop the knowledge, skills, and awareness to accept and respect all patients. Through supervision and in-vivo experiential learning, interns will learn how to become aware of their own individual biases and attitudes and how these may affect the treatment provided to our patients. They will also learn to be more comfortable working with multicultural, socioeconomic, and diverse gender experiences that RPC provides. Interns will learn how to professionally navigate cultural differences and provide culturally sensitive treatment. In additon, they will have the valuable opportunity of working on a multidisciplinary team with various disciplines to develop skills on how to work collaboratively with other treatment providers. These training goals and objectives will be accomplished via supervision from licensed psychologists in various modalities, including individual and group, who will provide the support and guidance needed.
All of these experiences will enhance their professional development as a growing professional in the field. By the end of the internship year, interns will be capable of providing a full range of services to treat adults with serious and persistent mental illness.