Internship

Overview

The doctoral internship at the UT Dallas Student Counseling Center (SCC) is an APA-accredited full-time, 12-month-long, organized, 2000-hour training program in health service psychology that provides comprehensive supervised experiences in University counseling center services and functions.

The current internship term begins August 5, 2024, and goes through August 4, 2025. Interns work approximately 40-45 hours per week, with 40 hours scheduled on-site. Approximately 25-50% of the intern’s time is devoted to clinical service activities.

Training Model and Philosophy

The doctoral internship program provided a practitioner model of training. Our primary training modality is experiential, emphasizing clinical practice and service delivery with the goal of creating ethical and culturally competent generalist practitioners. We use a developmental approach to facilitate the transition from graduate student to professional psychologist. Through close relationships with senior staff and supervisors, interns assume increasing levels of responsibility and autonomy, expanding their professional roles as the year progresses.

Training is focused on facilitating interns’ clinical competence, fostering the development of professional judgment, and enriching interns’ scientific and practice-based knowledge. Enhancement of multiculturalism and a social justice lens is interwoven into all facets of the training program, which reflects the strong value we place on honoring the identity and uniqueness of every individual.

We are also deeply committed to facilitating the integration of interns’ personal and professional identities through engaging them in supportive, challenging supervisory and mentoring relationships with a heightened focus on whom the intern is as an individual and how that impacts them professionally. In addition, our internship program is based largely on a relational “use of self” training model, as we believe that optimal professional development occurs within the context of self-reflection and personal exploration. The “use of self” model refers not only to clinical work, but to all training and supervisory experiences. Interns are expected to explore values, beliefs, biases and reactions in all of their training contexts.

Program Aim

To prepare doctoral interns to become entry-level, health service psychologists through a year-long internship focused on clinical competence, identity and intersectionality, and the integration of personal/professional attitudes, values and behaviors.

Consistent with APA/COA, we define cultural and individual differences and diversity as including but not limited to ability status, age, culture, ethnicity, gender, gender identity, language, national origin, race, religion, sexual orientation and socioeconomic status.

Impact of COVID-19 Pandemic on Doctoral Internship

Since the onset of COVID-19, we have prioritized safety, flexibility and continued commitment to ensuring the doctoral internship maintains its quality and integrity, and that interns develop the skills and competencies outlined by APA’s Standards of Accreditation. Throughout the pandemic, the SCC has ensured we are able to meet the needs of students while adhering to public health guidelines and COVID-related guidelines established by the university for students, staff and faculty.

All staff and trainees are currently working in-person at the SCC, with the option to work from home one day per week. All interns are provided UTD-issued laptops and any other materials needed to work from home and receive training and support related to teletherapy and telesupervision. Some clinical services primarily continue to occur virtually, while others are offered with options for either in-person and virtual services. We deeply value the perspectives and individual considerations of each intern as we navigate each training year amidst the pandemic, and we engage in transparent conversations with interns about changes that might be upcoming as guidelines continue to evolve.

For additional information regarding the program’s telehealth/telesupervision policies, please see the Intern Training Manual. For questions about any temporary or long-term changes made to the internship program related to the pandemic, feel free to reach out to Erin Schrader, training director.