Internship Philosophy and Model

Philosophy of Training

The training program at the WMCC embraces the responsibility of providing a supportive comprehensive doctoral-level internship training in a counseling center setting. Our training program is consistent with the overall mission of the WMCC, i.e., provide quality and culturally sensitive professional service to students facing developmental and clinical issues that could interfere with the fulfillment of their educational and personal goals.

 Developmental-Experiential-Apprenticeship Training
The philosophy of the WMCC internship program follows a Developmental-Experiential-Apprenticeship Model. The internship builds on the foundation of knowledge and skills acquired through the diverse experiences of graduate coursework, research, practica and other applied activities.  The center considers the internship a capstone to a doctoral psychology professional training.  We strive to facilitate the integration of knowledge and skills and the consolidation of a professional identity as a psychologist.  As such, our mission is to provide a training environment that facilitates transition from graduate student to culturally sensitive, clinically skilled and ethically sound professional psychologist.  

Integration of Scholarly work and practice
An important component of the WMCC philosophy of training is the belief in the need to integrate scholarly knowledge, research findings, and critical thinking into clinical practice and clinical decision making.  We encourage the consumption of scholarly research.

Mentoring, Modeling, and Supervision
Trainees are supervised by senior staff members who model the highest ethical, legal and professional standards of the profession and provide a safe and supportive environment that would foster interns’ learning and development. It is in this type of environment that interns could effectively develop conceptual, methodological, therapeutic, and case management skills while engaging in a self-exploration process that would be conducive to personal and professional growth. 

In addition to the intense clinical supervision interns receive, they also participate in formal training activities that are structured to promote a theoretical and clinical foundation of generalist and ethical service providers.  The structured training activities include an orientation program, training seminars, case conferences, peer supervision, and group supervision. 

Mentoring and an “open door policy” are highly valued at the center. Interns are encouraged to utilize and consult with all professional staff regardless of supervision assignments.

Goals of the Internship

Introduction

The range of experiences at the WMCC is ideally suited for interns looking to develop and master generalist skills with a college student population. Interns are offered challenging opportunities and supportive supervision with the aim of facilitating 1) the growth in areas of strength, 2) self-exploration as a means to identify values, assumptions, and beliefs and their role in clinical practice, 3) multicultural awareness and sensitivity, 4) exploration and experimentation with diverse psychological theories and approaches to therapy,  5) the development of new and innovative clinical skills, 6) gain in self-confidence and autonomy and 7) the development of  a professional identity as a skilled and ethical psychologist.

Considering the role of the self as a therapeutic tool, a goal of the internship at the WMCC is to nurture reflective practice and self-assessment.  Interns will be encouraged to broaden their self-awareness to explore their values, attitudes and beliefs and their impact on professional practice.  Interns will be expected to demonstrate ability to monitor own professional performance, to recognize strengths and areas of growth and to recognize and implement strategies to ameliorate the impact of possible problems on service delivery.  Consistent with the Ethical Principles and Code of Conduct of the American Psychological Association, interns will be encouraged, but not required, to explore the possible impact of personal experiences in their clinical work.

The field of professional psychology demands a flexible and integrated repertoire of skills and competencies. As such, our training program is designed to prepare interns to work as competent clinicians skilled in the core areas of 1) Professional Identity and Conduct, 2) Ethical Behaviors, 3) Multicultural Competence, 4) Individual/Couple’s  Psychotherapy, 5) Group Psychotherapy, 6) Intake and Crisis Intervention, 7) Clinical Supervision, 8) Psychological Assessment and Conceptualization, 9) Outreach and Consultation.  

1. Professional Development and Conduct

Interns will be able to demonstrate professionalism during the internship.  Interns are expected to gain competence, self-awareness, confidence and autonomy in their professional practice. Interns will be expected to demonstrate ability to monitor their own professional behavior and performance including the ability to a) apply the APA Ethical Principles and Code of Conduct, b) maintain an appropriate professional role with clients, c) maintain accurate documentation records, d) develop appropriate interaction with staff and trainees, e) recognize strengths and areas of growth, and f) develop a sense of professional identity. 

2. Ethical Conduct

An overarching goal of the WMCC is to instill a commitment to ethical practice. Interns will participate in training seminars to discuss ethical issues facing the profession and those particularly connected to Counseling Center settings.  Individual and peer supervision provide additional opportunities to address and study ethical dilemmas and decision making.  The Ethical Principles of Psychologists and Code of Conduct of the American Psychological Association (2002) provide the definition of ethical conduct. 

3. Multicultural Competence:

Interns will be able to demonstrate cultural sensitivity and competence in service delivery with clients from diverse cultural backgrounds and other forms of individual difference. Training activities are designed to facilitate exploration of assumptions and their impact on clinical practice.  Interns are exposed to diverse clients and are expected to develop self-awareness, appreciation of differences, and understanding of the different socio-political contexts in which people live. Multicultural competence is defined according to the Guidelines on Multicultural Education, Training, Research, Practice, and Organizational Change of the American Psychological Association (2003).

4. Psychological Assessment:

Interns will be able to provide intake interviews for clients seeking services.   They will be able to accurately assess clients’ psychological needs, make accurate diagnoses and conceptualizations, and recommend a disposition addressing the need for individual or group therapy, psychiatric referral, or other interventions including referrals to other student affairs departments or community services. Interns will be able to make clinical decisions about the selection and utilization of psychological tests in their clinical practice; they will demonstrate ability to accurately interpret data from assessment instruments. Interns will demonstrate sensitivity to the context of the client’s culture when selecting, implementing and interpreting test results.  Interns will be able to demonstrate ability to use assessment data to inform their clinical interventions.

5. Individual Psychotherapy:

Interns will be able to offer individual psychotherapy to college students with a variety of presenting concerns and clinical issues during the internship year. They will be able to apply diverse psychological theories and approaches to therapy based on clients’ needs.  They will be able to document their clinical interventions with clients.

6. Group Psychotherapy:

Interns will be able to facilitate process-oriented therapy groups and/or theme-oriented groups.  They will be able to collaborate with co-leaders and document the clinical interventions with groups.

7. Crisis Intervention:

Interns will be able to provide crisis intervention for clients experiencing acute personal distress or symptomatology. Interns will be able to assess clients’ needs and help reduce their immediate distress. Interns will be able to evaluate client’s safety regarding risk of danger to self and/or others and mobilize resources accordingly.

8. Clinical Supervision:

Interns will be able to participate in their own supervision and demonstrate openness to feedback and receptiveness to new ideas.  They will be able to apply what they learn in their interventions with clients. They will also provide supervision for doctoral level practicum students. Interns will be able to provide a safe environment for practicum students to discuss their cases and demonstrate ability to assist them with the conceptualization of cases and with suggestions for treatment. As supervisors, interns will provide feedback and help supervisees develop self-critiquing skills encouraging identification of strengths as well as areas of growth.  They will apply the criteria for evaluation in a fair manner.  

9. Outreach and Consultation:

Interns will be able to design and implement psycho-educational presentations and workshops for audiences within the campus community.  They will be able to respond to consultation needs from faculty, staff, parents, student affairs professionals, residence life and other members of the College.

Program Overview

During the 2000-hour, 12‑month internship at the College of William and Mary Counseling Center (WMCC), interns are given the opportunity to practice and develop familiarity with numerous responsibilities exercised by counseling-center psychologists. Whereas the training curriculum is fairly standardized, the program offers opportunities for individual emphasis while ensuring basic competency in required areas. Interns will find the WMCC to be a dynamic and fast-paced environment which is both demanding and rewarding. As such, the WMCC staff seek to provide a humanistic and supportive atmosphere—one in which interns are encouraged to strive for a healthy balance in their personal and professional lives while meeting the challenges of this intensive training experience.

The Curriculum

Clinical Service Activities

1.  Individual and Couples Therapy: Interns dedicate an average of 14 hours per week to individual and couples counseling. While the Counseling Center does not employ formal session limits, short-term counseling based on specific, circumscribed treatment goals is the norm. However, opportunities for longer-term counseling are available to interns based on program training objectives, intern interest, and client need. Exposure to multiple psychotherapeutic models and theoretical orientations is available through individual and peer supervision, as well as through various training seminars.

2.  Group Therapy: Together with a senior staff member, interns co-facilitate at least one weekly 90-minute group during that academic year. The Center provides both open-ended process groups and structured, time-limited group experiences. Groups frequently offered at the WMCC have addressed general interpersonal issues, self-esteem, eating- and body-related distress, sexual minority concerns, recovery from sexual assault/abuse, the graduate-student experience, and racial/ethnic identity. Additional group opportunities often arise as a result of expressed staff interest, identified trends, or in response to campus events (e.g., grief/loss, family of origin issues). Training in group facilitation is available through weekly group-therapy supervision meetings and through debriefing sessions with the senior staff co-leader.

3.  Intake and Formal Assessment: Interns conduct four half-hour interview-based intake assessments per week for the duration of the internship. Training in diagnostic interviewing and referral is offered during orientation, as part of the assessment seminar, and in individual and peer supervision.

4.  Crisis Intervention/On-Call: Interns participate fully in the Center’s rotation of immediate-crisis and after-hours, on-call responsibilities. To respond to the urgent concerns of students, the Center designates a three member intake/IC team for every business day. It is this team’s responsibility to evaluate the severity of crisis-oriented calls and walk-ins and, when needed, to conduct emergency intakes. In addition, Center staff are available on a rotating basis during non-business hours to consult by phone with College staff or with students in crisis. Interns can anticipate providing 2-3 days of on-call after-hours coverage per month during the academic year. A senior staff member is available for consultations during interns’ on call duty. As part of their crisis-intervention and on-call duties, interns may need to meet a student for an in-person assessment at the health center if there is an imminent safety risk.  In this case, they will have the opportunity to contribute to multidisciplinary staff teams charged with responding to individual and campus-wide emergencies. Crisis-intervention training is provided during orientation, during the assessment seminar, in individual supervision, and during the clinical debriefings following crisis incidents.

5.  Outreach and Consultation: Individually and/or as co-facilitators, interns will implement a total of 8 outreach programs during the internship year. At least four of these programs need to be psycho-educational in nature in the intern’s selected areas of interest (one of these programs should be accompanied by a file describing the different components of the program). In addition, along with other staff, interns will help disseminate information about Center services to various audiences (two of these programs are required during the students’ orientation) and help with informal diagnostic screenings during mental-health awareness events (2 required during the internship year). As a function of their crisis-response and case-management responsibilities, interns will also have the opportunity to offer mental-health consultation to faculty and other campus staff. Clinical case consultation among Center staff occurs regularly. Training in this domain is available through the outreach seminar and through consultations with supervisors and other staff members.

6.  Supervision of Practicum Students:  Interns provide individual supervision to one doctoral-level practicum student from the Virginia Consortium Program in Clinical Psychology. Under the guidance of the training staff, interns provide 1.5 hours a week of face-to-face supervision and/or evaluation of the practicum student’s psychotherapy work. Training in supervision is provided through the supervision seminar, in meetings with the intern’s supervisor in charge of supervising the supervision of a practicum student, and through regular, supervisors of supervision meetings.

7.  Rotations: During the summer months, interns may select an area of specialized concentration and complete a rotation in that domain under the guidance of a university staff person. Time commitment for rotations is estimated at four hours per week. Possible areas of concentration may include sport psychology, values and positive psychology, paraprofessional training, multicultural student concerns, sexual assault response, and career counseling.

Supervision and Training Seminars

1.  Supervision: To maximize interns’ exposure to diverse clinical perspective and approaches, they will work closely with several supervisors over the course of the year. Each intern meets individually for 1.5 hours a week with a supervisor, who has responsibility for one half of the intern’s psychotherapy cases and the intern’s supervision of an advanced practicum trainee. A second supervisor provides another 1.5 hours of weekly individual supervision focused on intake assessment and the other half of the intern’s therapy cases. Both supervisors are responsible for the intern’s overall experience and general professional development. Interns may choose to switch one of the supervisors mid-year; for continuity purposes having one of the two original supervisors for the duration of the internship is recommended. The final decisions about supervisor matches are made considering the training needs of the internship class. Group therapy is supervised by a senior staff group co-leader, and group therapy supervision meetings. Depending on interns’ experience in group therapy they may co-lead groups with another intern, or a doctoral-level practicum student in the spring semester or they can choose to continue to co-lead a group with a senior staff member.  Supervision of interns’ work with practicum students is provided in individual supervision with one of the individual supervisors as well as in a group format as part of the supervision seminar. Supervisors are assigned based on the interests and preferences of the interns and on the recommendations of the training staff.

2.  Seminars: During the academic year, interns spend approximately 4 hours a week in training seminars. In keeping with the goals of the training program, seminars are intended to explore core theoretical, ethical, scientific, multicultural, and diagnostic issues as they relate to the delivery of clinical services in a university setting. To those ends, both general readings and case-based presentations are used to facilitate interns’ conceptual formulations and integration of theory, research, and practice. Seminar leaders and other participants provide peer consultation regarding the case materials of each intern.

3.  Assessment (biweekly for two semesters): The seminar focuses on basic principles and practices for clinical evaluation, including the intake process and diagnostic screening, emergency and mental status examinations, and the use and integration of testing and clinical interviews. As part of the experience, interns will be asked to develop familiarity with and implement the use of diagnostic instruments particularly suited to counseling center settings. Selection of appropriate assessment tools, providing assessment feedback to clients, ethical standards in assessment, and assessment report-writing will be addressed.

4.  Clinical/Professional Issues Seminar (biweekly for two semesters): This seminar focuses on general approaches to psychotherapy and empirically supported therapies, the various phases of therapy (e.g., termination), aspects of the therapist-client relationship, clinical use of self-disclosure, treatment of sexual abuse and of eating disorders as well as on ethical and legal dimensions of practice and professional identity issues such as professional directions after internship.  Assigned readings and shared case material provide a basis for group discussion.

5.  Supervision Theory and Practice/Supervision of Supervision (weekly for two semesters): Principles and developmental stages of supervision are examined and applied. The seminar also provides group supervision of the interns’ supervisory work with practicum students.

6.  Diversity Seminar (biweekly for two semesters): The seminar addresses diversity issues in therapy through readings, peer discussion and review of recorded therapy sessions. Throughout the year, the seminar examines the general impact of the therapist’s and client’s values, and cultural background on the therapeutic process.

7.  Outreach and Consultation (biweekly for the first semester): The seminar focuses on the philosophy and techniques of outreach and primary prevention, development of specific psycho-educational workshops, formal and informal consultation strategies, and related topics. The projects of each intern are developed and reviewed via group discussions and feedback.

Administrative Activities

1.  Staff and Case-Assignment Meetings: For two hours every week, interns will meet with the clinical staff to address ongoing administrative and clinical issues. During these meetings, staff will review requests for services and assign cases to available counselors. While interns are expected to build a balanced caseload, they may also pursue clinical emphases in areas of interest, such as eating disorders, substance abuse, trauma recovery, or sexuality.

2.  Documentation/Paperwork: Up to seven hours every week are available for documentation and paperwork responsibilities.

3.  Research: Interns are allotted two hours per week during the academic year and four hours a week during the summer months to pursue the completion of their dissertations or other independent research projects.

4.  Meetings with Training Director: Every other month (or more frequently based on need) for the first semester and then as needed, interns will meet as a group with the Training Director for one hour. These meetings will address general program issues, intern needs, and satisfaction with the internship experience.

5.  Intern Support Meetings: Interns will meet based on interest and need, as a group and without training staff, for the purpose of providing support to one another. These meetings provide interns with a break from clinical responsibilities, an opportunity to spend time together away from the office, and time to develop cohesion as a group.

Weekly Activity Summary: