BYU-CAPS Psychology Internship Highlights

Photo by Mark W. Lisk

Photo by Mark W. Lisk

As you make plans for completing a psychology internship, you are probably looking at many different options. We would like to help you decide whether the Psychology Internship Program at the BYU-CAPS would be good fit for you. Here are some of the excellent training opportunities that await future interns at BYU-CAPS.

• Clinical Rotation opportunities at BYU-CAPS. Past interns repeatedly highlight that one of the most positive components to our internship was the diversity, variety, and amount of Clinical Rotations we offer. Our numerous Clinical Rotations provide interns the opportunity to gain focused experience in clinical specialties or with particular clinical populations.

• Interns can participate in the following 2-4 hour clinical rotations:
  
  • Couples Therapy
  • Sexual Health Rotation (led by an AASECT certified therapist)
  • Outreach Services
  • Group Therapy
  • Multicultural/Cultural Diversity
  • Stress Management and Biofeedback Services
  • Spirituality Seminar
  • Psychological Liaison to University Housing
  • Teaching Courses Related to Psychological Well-being
  • Research
  • Career Psychology
  • Administration

• Training focus in CAPS. The internship program is a top priority in our center. Interns' training needs are placed ahead of CAPS' service delivery needs. We have 25 full-time licensed psychologists on the clinical faculty at our center. This provides Interns a diversity of options when choosing their supervisors and learning different approaches to therapy. Furthermore, one-third of an intern's time is devoted to didactic training, supervision, and consultation with other interns and clinical faculty. At least 35 percent of an intern's time is devoted to direct service activities.

• State of the art training facilities. Facilities include attractive intern offices (same size as the clinical faculty offices) equipped with computer, phone, digital video recording and playback equipment, bookshelves, and a printer/scanner.

• Couples therapy and assessment. You want to work with couples? We can make that happen! Didactic training, supervised experience, and consultation in couples' therapy is an emphasis of the internship. Currently we offer a clinical rotation in couples therapy and another rotation in sexual health. With 25 percent of the BYU student body married (and many others thinking about getting married), there is a strong demand for couples therapy and assessment.

• Group therapy. CAPS typically offers around 30 different groups each semester, with a variety of process, theme-oriented, and structured groups. Interns typically run 1-2 groups per semester. Additionally, interns can develop and run groups based on their clinical interests. Here are just a few of the groups run at BYU-CAPS.

• Multicultural training and experience. BYU has a student body of over 34,000 students, of which 18 percent are ethnic minorities and 5 percent are from foreign countries, 105 countries represented. Training seminars and consultation on multicultural issues are a strong emphasis for interns throughout the year. Furthermore, interns can participate in a Multicultural/Cultural Diversity Clinical Rotation while on Internship.

• Integration of religious and spiritual issues in clinical services. Interns are provided experience, didactic training, and supervision in integrating clients' religious and spiritual issues in the therapy, assessment, and consultation processes. A Spirituality Seminar is offered for those interns who desire to gain further depth regarding religious and spirituality issues.

• Assessment Seminar experience. Didactic training and supervised experience in psychological, career, and educational assessment of college students' personal, academic, and career problems, including the writing of assessment reports, is provided in a weekly seminar format which encourages discussion and feedback among interns.
  

• Supervision of Supervision Seminar: Interns receive brief training on supervisory models and then provide supervision to first-year counseling psychology students for one semester (winter). Interns receive guidance and feedback on how to improve their skills and advance in their competence to provide supervision.

• Therapy outcome research. Interns have opportunities for involvement in a well-established and nationally recognized therapy outcome research program, often leading to professional presentations or journal articles. CAPS has all clinical clients complete the Outcome Questionnaire (OQ-45) each session. Interns have access to current clients’ OQ-45 scores before every session on their office computer and client data sets from over 35+ years. Interns are provided four hours per week to complete dissertations or to work on research.
  

• Training in Innovative Treatment Modalities. Interns are given opportunities for didactic training and supervised experiences with a large variety and diversity of innovative treatment approaches. These include Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT), Humanistic/Person-Centered, Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT), Positive Psychology, Rational Emotive Behavioral Therapy (REBT), Interpersonal Therapy (IPT), Compassion-Focused Therapy (CFT), Internal Family Systems (IFS), mindfulness, biofeedback/stress management treatment, etc.

  • Several groups that are offered at BYU-CAPS follow a specific theoretical orientation approach and provide excellent opportunities for our interns to receive specialized trainings in approaching treatment from a specific theoretical orientation.
    
• Psychological, career, and educational assessment.  Didactic training and supervised experience in assessment of college students' personal, academic, and career problems, including the writing of assessment reports, is provided in a seminar format which encourages discussion and feedback among interns.
  
• Intern Cohort Collegiality: It is our intent and hope that our interns will have strong and supportive relationships with one another as they complete their internships. To support this goal, BYU-CAPS offers interns an opportunity to meet weekly for one hour as a cohort to discuss any pertinent matters. Further, once a month BYU-CAPS pays for interns to go out together for a two-hour lunch off-or-on campus at the interns’ choice.