Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences

Psychology Postdoctoral Fellowship

Objectives and goals of our program


  1. Trainees will increase their professional competency in the areas of case conceptualization, evaluation, consultation, and intervention.  At the end of their training, trainees will be able to effectively evaluate, and, when necessary, provide comprehensive psychological assessments to clients.  In addition, trainees will be able to design and implement appropriate treatment interventions, such as psychotherapy and crisis management, to individuals who represent a range of complex backgrounds and psychological problems.

  2. Trainees will increase their knowledge of the practice of psychology within multidisciplinary settings.  They will have gained the necessary training to engage in thoughtful and collaborative work with providers representing medical, legal, educational, and social work professions.

  3. Trainees will be able to practice psychology independently and autonomously within a variety of contexts, including private practice, medical centers, inpatient psychiatric facilities, and community-based outpatient clinics.

Competencies


  1. To become familiar with the role of psychologist on a multi-disciplinary team

    • Provide psycho-diagnostic information/impressions on clients (patients), including but not limited to presentations of assessment data.
    • Participate in treatment and disposition planning for individual clients (patients) and families.
    • Participate in problem-solving among members of a multi-disciplinary team.
    • Develop productive working relationships with other disciplines involved in treatment of clients (patients), including members of multi-disciplinary team, referring clinicians, and medical consultants, psychiatrists, and CPS workers.
    • Educate other disciplines on the value and limits of psychological test data, what questions can and cannot be answered
    • Provide ongoing treatment for clients (patients).
  2. To develop assessment skills

    • Conduct clinical interviews, including establishing rapport, history taking, behavioral observations, and mental status examinations.
    • Administer, score, and interpret psychological measures.
    • Become familiar with and skilled in employing the DSM-IV and the DC: 0-3.
    • Obtain information from collateral sources (relatives, outpatient clinicians, school personnel) and integrate into the treatment plan.
    • Become familiar with and obtain relevant information from medical records.
    • Integrate information from multiple sources including clinical interview, medical records, test data, psychiatric, social work, nursing, and collateral sources.
  3. To develop psychotherapy skills

    • Establish rapport and develop a working therapeutic relationship.
    • Identify target of treatment interventions and establish treatment goals (with family involvement).
  4. To assess and diagnose a full range of psychiatric disorders and problems  encountered in adult inpatient setting, adult outpatient settings, child outpatient  settings, or child psychiatric crisis units

  5. To develop skills writing psychological evaluations and progress notes

  6. To become familiar with psychopharmacology, including different classes of  medications,  target symptoms and side-effects

  7. To become familiar with systems issues as they impact the functioning of an  inpatient unit or outpatient clinic