Internship: Philosophy of Education and Training
The IPPP at RCMH offers a comprehensive pre-doctoral training experience in the clinical practice of psychology in community mental health settings. Our training emphasizes the treatment of children with severe emotional disturbances and families challenged by complex, multi-systemic issues, and practice with adults. Upon satisfactory completion, interns are prepared to enter the practice of psychology with demonstrated competence in assessment of and clinical intervention with problems commonly facing psychologists in community health settings. Our training program prepares interns to fill the roles of professional psychologist, consultant, supervisor, and evaluator of individuals, families, and organizations.
Interns have a primary and a secondary rotation with the possibility of several different settings and services including community mental health centers, school-based clinics, integrated primary care, rural branch offices, community support programs (for the treatment of severely persistently mentally ill adults or those with dual diagnoses), emergency services, elder services, and outpatient services for individuals, couples, and families. The positions and settings offered to interns are selected based on the needs of particular programs and on the ability of the position to contribute to the training program goals, and thus particular sites may vary from year to year.
The IPPP employs the local clinical scientist model (Stricker and Trierweiler, 1995) for the guiding principals in its design and operation as well as the conduct of faculty, administrators and interns. The model defines for the program the relationship between the science of psychology and practice of psychology, emphasizing the application of psychological science to local clinical practice. Four premises are important within the model as applied within the IPPP program; the local clinical scientist: 1) is a psychologist who approaches his/her work with the “attitude of a scientist”—an astute practitioner skilled in observation, conceptualization, and planning, who seeks to advance both the body of scientific knowledge and the implementation of that knowledge toward providing effective services to consumers; 2) is sensitive to individual and cultural differences and able to conduct a careful analysis of the specific local context in which she is working while mindful of her own impact(s) as an observer; 3) values forms of research that empower participants; and 4) knows that the proper application of scientific knowledge to clinical practice requires careful integration of general findings to complex, specific situations. This training model allows the IPPP to be responsive to: (a) changing regional and national needs; (b) evolving knowledge bases in various aspects of mental health service provision; and (c) marketplace dynamics pertaining to local, regional, and national developments.
In community mental health settings, psychologists typically work with people who must navigate a variety of systems while coping with severe disturbances, complex life-circumstances, and multiple, co-morbid diagnoses. The local clinical scientist approach is well suited to community mental heath due to its focus on integrating a scientific approach to understanding problems with the locally specific meanings that inform the phenomenological experiences of consumers as consumers and in their day-to-day living.
The development of the internship program has been shaped in large part by the specific context in which it operates and by the nature of our local practice environment. Our sponsor agency has an exclusively service-related mission statement. As part of the mission and values of RCMH, the IPPP is designed to train psychologists in settings providing a full range of responsive and accessible mental health services. Both RCMH and the IPPP value diversity and compassion as well as the promotion of hopefulness and self-determination, recovery, the provision of customized, personal care, the cultivation of richer, balanced, and coherent lives for both our consumers and providers, and an approach that involves partnership with and respect for consumers. The training mission of the internship program supports the service mission of RCMH. The IPPP exists in large part because the involvement of staff in training psychology interns and the presence of interns in clinical roles are seen as enhancing the services offered to consumers.
RCMH’s staff psychologists perform a wide variety of clinical activities and frequently are in clinical leadership roles. Providers work on teams of professional colleagues from a range of mental health disciplines, including psychiatry, nursing, social work, substance abuse counseling, and mental health counseling. We also work with many colleagues who are trained at the bachelor’s level. Prior to the IPPP, it had been a challenge for RCMH to develop clarity about the role and identity of psychologists in these situations.
By claiming the role of local clinical scientist we have been able to define, both for ourselves and for our interns, the distinct attitude and skill-set which the psychologist brings to clinical practice in community health settings. Psychologists bring an attitude of scientific inquiry, the ability to analyze the clinical situation carefully and systematically, and the thoughtful use of scientifically generated knowledge that distinguish us from other clinicians, rather than simply the ability to conduct psychological evaluations or a particular position in a status hierarchy. RCMH’s Psychology staff members strive to model the application of both scientific knowledge and this scientific attitude to problems in our local clinical setting. In our own clinical work and in our supervision of interns, we strive to exemplify the use of “the same discipline, critical thinking, imagination, openness to falsification, and rigor that characterizes the scientist in the traditional laboratory” (Stricker and Trierweiler, 1995, p. 998).
Goals and Objectives
Goal # 1: To prepare pre-doctoral interns for entry into the practice of psychology in community settings emphasizing the treatment of children with more severe disturbances in their functioning and families challenged by complex multi-systemic problems.
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Goal # 2:
To prepare pre-doctoral interns who are equipped to function in complex systems of care in the role of psychologist as members of multidisciplinary teams and who are able to perform the various roles required of psychologists, including supervisor and consultant.
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Goal # 3:
To prepare pre-doctoral interns who possess an understanding of and commitment to ethical practice, self-awareness, and practice that is sensitive to individual and cultural differences.
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Goal # 4:
To prepare pre-doctoral interns to be evaluators of individuals, families, and systems.
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Goal # 5:
To prepare pre-doctoral interns as ‘local clinical scientists’ who approach the practice of psychology with a ‘scientific attitude’ in which individual factors, the general fund of psychology knowledge, and local, context specific dynamics are balanced in their impact on the conceptualization of, and approach to, client problems and intervention planning.
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