Clinical Training Activities

Individual Clinical Supervision

Interns are assigned three individual supervisors with whom they meet one hour per week. The intern works with the Primary Supervisor for the duration of the internship year, with each Secondary Supervisor for six months, and with the Case Management Supervisor for three quarters. The supervision of the intern’s individual therapy caseload is divided equally by the Primary and Secondary Supervisors who focus on the intern’s developing skills in case conceptualization (including diagnosis), treatment planning, and intervention. Case Management Supervision focuses on intake assessment, crisis assessment and intervention, clinical consults, and case management skills. Issues related to interns’ professional development are covered by all three individual supervisors.

Individual Supervision for Group Psychotherapy

Interns also obtain individual supervision of their group therapy once a week for 30 minutes. All interns are involved in co-facilitating at least one therapy group during the academic year (nine months). Interns meet with their senior staff co-therapist following the provision of the therapy group to de-brief the session, discuss group process and conceptualization, and plan for future interventions.

Individual Liaison Consultant

Each intern also works with a Liaison Supervisor for the duration of the internship year, with meetings occurring on an as-needed basis. Following the apprenticeship model, the Liaison Supervisor advises the intern on consultative responsibilities/assignments. The Liaison Supervisor introduces the intern to assigned liaison units and their staffs to foster the development of the consultative relationship and may collaborate with the intern on outreach programs.

Supervision of Outreach and Educational Programs

Interns participate in outreach and psychoeducational workshops (including designing, promoting, conducting, and evaluating) in all four quarters, and work on their Media Interventions in one quarter.  Interns learn to provide semi-structured to structured workshops which are conducted during two quarters.  The Assistant Director for Outreach and Education provides training discussion of issues related to workshop/outreach program development.  In accordance with the developmental/mentoring model, interns co-facilitate the outreach or workshop series.  Interns may also serve as mentors to externs who also participate in each workshop. 

Each intern collaborates in presenting at least 5 outreach programs during the year.  Supervision of these outreach programs is provided by the senior staff with whom the intern collaborates on the project.  When the outreach program is requested by a group or department on campus, the intern’s O&E Supervisor is often his/her Liaison Supervisor.  Interns meet with the O&E Supervisor before and after the workshop session to plan, debrief, and for input and feedback from the supervisor. 

Each intern also conducts at least 2 suicide prevention workshops supervised by the Assistant Director for Outreach & Education. In addition, each intern conducts at least one workshop for the Stress Management Clinic, usually in the summer quarter, under supervision of a senior staff.  

The Media Interventions allows the intern to work on a project individually with the Assistant Director for Outreach and Education.  Examples of past Media Intervention projects include designing an informational brochure, designing webpages for CAPS, or other efforts to disseminate mental health information to the community. 

Supervision of Supervision

Each intern provides clinical supervision to a practicum extern. Interns meet for 1.5 hours in a weekly session led by a licensed psychologist to receive group supervision for their supervision of practicum externs. A case conference model is utilized with an emphasis on peer consultation and dialogue. Discussion centers around the process of clinical supervision. Methods utilized include small group discussion and weekly updates by each intern, as well as rotating responsibility for focused case conference presentations by each intern utilizing audio- and videotapes of supervision. Intern supervisors are provided with readings concerning supervision models, research, legal/ethical issues. Readings are discussed in relation to the interns’ developing model and experience with supervision. It is expected that the analysis and discussion of ongoing and current experiences as a supervisor will be informed by focused reading of the supervision literature.

Intern Seminar

This weekly seminar is designed to span a broad range of interns’ learning needs during the internship year. Utilizing a format of case presentations, session recordings, discussion of readings, brief didactic presentations, and utilization of agency data, the seminar exposes interns to in-depth and intensive training in five core competency areas over the course of the year: (a) Individual and Group Psychotherapy and Crisis Intervention, (b) Clinical Assessment, (c) Multicultural and Diversity Issues in Psychotherapy, (d) Legal and Ethical Issues in Psychotherapy, (e) Psychiatric Consult, and (f) Professional Development.

The fall quarter’s Intern Seminar begins with the Brief Psychotherapy Module in weekly one-hour meetings led by a licensed psychologist at the Chicago CAPS office. The module is aimed to broaden and deepen interns’ theoretical knowledge and enhance their skills in brief psychotherapeutic interventions and conceptualization. Discussion topics include the motivation for change in therapy, intern beliefs about the effectiveness of short-term treatment, differences in the value systems of brief and longer term treatment, developing a focus for treatment, and principles of crisis intervention, transference and countertransference issues, and termination issues. The format includes discussion of various readings, case presentations, use of training videos, and guest presenters.

Another module in the fall Intern Seminar is the Psychiatric Consult competency area. A CAPS psychiatrist presents psychiatric topics such as the Mental Status Examination, DSM diagnostic system, collaboration between psychologists and psychiatrists, bipolar disorders, sleep disorders and treatment, and psychopharmacology. This one-hour seminar is offered at the Chicago CAPS office.

The Intern Seminar in the spring quarter continues in Evanston with coverage of the remaining core areas. The Multicultural and Diversity Issues Module in the winter quarter is a series of presenters and panels who address a variety of topics related to multicultural competency in clinical work. Issues of multicultural competency are also addressed outside of this series in other presentations later in the year.

Addressing various aspects of clinical competency, the Intern Seminar continues in a 90-minute weekly meeting format in the spring and summer quarters. For the competencies related to psychotherapy, topics of presentations have included the assessment and/or treatment of substance and alcohol, eating disorders, trauma, personality disorders, anxiety disorders, working with emotions, and empirically validated biopsychological approaches for stress and anxiety reduction, including mindfulness techniques, cognitive-behavioral techniques, and biofeedback. In a seminar on group psychotherapy led by a staff psychologist expert in group therapy, interns further examine group psychotherapy issues (e.g., stages of group development, curative factors, selection and screening, transference/countertransference, conflict and crisis management, termination) by reading significant articles, and case presentations of various “critical incidents” from each of the interns’ therapy groups, and discussing aspects of professional development that may integrate interns’ interest in providing group psychotherapy.

The Intern Seminar continues through July. A seminar in the spring quarter is devoted to the Legal/Ethical Module aimed to provide interns with a basis for legal and ethical practice in professional psychology. The attention to interns’ Professional Development is integrated into the seminar throughout the year, with topics such as post-internship job application, developing a presentation (“job talk”) for the intern’s job interview, preparing a professional curriculum vita, or establishing a private practice.