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Counseling Services

Core Training Areas

 

Consultation, Intakes, and Testing • Crisis Intervention Skills• Individual Therapy • Group Therapy Skills • Outreach • Supervision - Ethics and Professional Behavior • Multicultural Competency - Formal Case Presentations - Grand Rounds - Other Research Opportunities - Consultation Activities - Direct Service Requirement

Consultations, Intakes and Testing

Consultations, Intakes, and Testing activities provide specific training and experience in the skills needed to execute these fundamental clinical activities.  In addition, they provide interns with the opportunity to develop the profession-wide competencies related to assessment, communication and interpersonal skills, and individual and cultural difference.  Training in specific assessment tools, instruction in the use of DSM-V, and presentation, formulation and diagnosis of cases takes place in seminars, during case conferences, and in intern seminars on theoretical and diagnostic issues. Additional reading on assessment procedures may be assigned, depending on the education and completed coursework of the intern.
 
Consultations and Intakes.  Interns regularly conduct initial consultation interviews in order to develop and refine skills in assessment, problem-formulation and diagnosis. Initial consultations are 30 minute appointments that serve as the starting point for students seeking services.  The purpose of the consultation appointment is to gather information about the presenting concern, conduct risk assessment, and make an initial determination if the student is appropriate for short-term services.  Interns must conduct 30 initial consultations independently over the course of the internship to successfully complete the internship.  Intakes are 45-minute appointments occurring after a student has completed our Pathways program.  In these, interns gather more detailed information regarding the student's presenting concerns and history, identify goals for treatment, debrief Pathways, and collaborative develop an initial treatment plan with the client.  Interns must conduct 15 intakes independently over the course of the internship to successfully complete the internship.
 
Based on our philosophy of student development, we do not routinely make use of DSM-V diagnoses for all students seen at Counseling Clinic.  However, given that diagnostic proficiency is a key component of a psychologist’s professional identity, each intern is expected to discuss with her or his supervisor diagnostic consideration for all clients seen during the internship year. Training in formal diagnosis takes place in the context of supervision. Interns are also expected to include, when relevant, statements regarding potential differential diagnosis in their screening note clinical impressions section.  
 
Testing.  A portion of the Counseling Clinic’s time is dedicated to the assessment of Attention Deficit/ Hyperactivity Disorder (AD/HD) in adult learners. Interns are expected to assist in this activity. Interns begin training on AD/HD assessment with didactic seminars during orientation and then participate in group assessment supervision throughout the academic year. Interns also complete formal psychological assessments, utilizing personality assessment. Interns are encouraged to use formal, psychometrically-based assessments with their own clients also.  Interns participate in formal seminars regarding specific assessment instruments and in group assessment supervision throughout the academic year. 
 
To successfully complete internship, the intern must also complete, with supervision, four ADHD evaluations independently and at least 1 formal assessment battery with the appropriate written report. Within the realm of testing, interns do identify and provide specific DSM-V diagnoses, as consistent with the testing data.  
 
Consultation, Intake, and Testing activities count toward the overall accrual of direct service hours (see below).  Interns are credited direct service hours on a 1:1 ratio for all face-to-face interactions with clients, whether in screening or administering testing instruments.  Clients completing objective testing instruments (e.g., PAI) do not count as direct service.  Interns are allowed to count 25% of their testing interpretation and reporting writing hours – up to 20 hours total – as direct service.  

Crisis Intervention

Counseling Clinic’s staff responds to a variety of crises throughout the year. Staff members share in the responsibility for crisis response during normal operating hours. Interns are scheduled with a weekly “crisis spot” throughout the academic year and then take crisis appointments on an as needed basis during the slower summer months. Interns receive training in suicide assessment and crisis intervention during fall orientation. Interns are expected to demonstrate the ability to assess and respond appropriately to these crisis situations, as well as follow Counseling Clinic’s documented policies. Occasionally, interns assist in providing crisis intervention outside the clinic, for example in consultations with faculty or staff.   Interns also participate in the Clinic's afterhours on-call system, through which the Counseling Clinic provides expert consulations to the Dean's Office On-Call person and may provide telephone crisis intervention to students.  In the case that an intern receives an afterhours call that necessitates coming to campus, this decision would be made in consultation with a supervisor or the Training Director.  Interns on-call always have the back-up of a supervisor or Training Director.  

Individual Therapy

As a function of its rural setting and relatively tight resource picture, the agency operates as the primary mental health care facility for students, for whom therapy services are free of charge. Clinic clientele present with a full spectrum of problems, from relationship or developmental issues to major affective, anxiety, psychotic, or personality disorders.

An approach to treatment that integrates the psychological, social, and physical needs of clients is emphasized. Counseling staff meets bi-weekly with campus physicians, physician’s assistants, and nurse practitioners to consult on therapeutic management of those cases seen in both clinics. Occasionally, effective treatment requires consultation and coordination with local physicians, hospital, community mental health, substance abuse treatment center staff, and other community resources.

Interns are asked to videotape their individual and couple’s counseling sessions in order to enrich the training experience. Videotaped sessions are reviewed during supervision, after which it is the intern’s responsibility to ensure they are erased. In the beginning of the training year, interns are required to videotape every client at every session. 

Supervisors assume the liability and professional responsibility for the clients with whom the intern works. Thus, acceptance of a particular client onto an intern’s caseload is up to the discretion of the intern’s primary supervisor. Agency demands and availability of particular client characteristics also influence disposition of clients to an intern’s caseload.

Over the course of internship, interns might also engage in couples therapy.  The number of couples seeking services from our clinic is small overall and varies from year to year.  When couples do present for therapy, we attempt to funnel these clients to interns so that interns can obtain experience in this area.  Supervision of couples work is integrated into ongoing individual supervision.  However, given the low frequency of couples, couple’s work is not considered a core activity of the training and program and not separately evaluated as a distinct skill set. 

Group Therapy

The Counseling Clinic’s staff has a strong interest in groups and routinely offer group counseling to clients. At the start of each quarter the staff (including interns) discuss possible group offerings based on a combination of requests from client populations, service providers' interests, the expertise of staff, and traditional counseling clinic needs. Both interpersonal process groups and psychoeducational groups are typically available to clients throughout the academic year. Topics for problem-focused structured psychoeducational groups include anxiety management, stress management, depression management, and body image concerns. Structured workshops in time or anger management, grief issues or other topics are offered when the need arises or an adequate number of interested students for a specific topic are available.
 
In addition to these groups, the initial service provided for the majority of students requesting services is a series of 3 “seminars”/psychoeducational workshops introducing the basics of ACT theory and skills, problem definition, goal setting and implementation.  All staff members including interns are involved in presenting and facilitating these seminars on a regular basis. 

Interns are offered both clinical and administrative experience through their participation in the provision of group therapy.  It is hoped that an intern will have experiences with both process and psychoeducational groups during the internship year. Development of group counseling skills is designed to be sequential. During fall quarter, an intern is expected to work with a senior staff member in the preparation and implementation of a group as well as a Pathways series. Initially, the intern may observe or co-facilitate the group with a senior staff member. Once approved, the intern has the option of conducting that group on her/his own, may supervise a master’s student as a group co-leader (in a psychoeducational group), may facilitate a group with another intern, or may choose to become involved in the facilitation of a different group with a senior staff member.
 


Outreach

Outreach demands fluctuate greatly at the Counseling Clinic, however we believe that the ability to communicate psychological information effectively and in an engaging way is an important skill for a developing psychologist.  As part of participating in the daily operations of the clinic, and to develop these skills, interns will participate in outreach opportunities as they arise. Outreach presentations are often delivered outside of normal operating hours and may involve evening or weekend work and interns may take comp time for after-hours work. Requests for outreach presentations are intermittent and tend to occur mostly in the fall and winter.  If an intern is interested in developing this area as part of their individual training goals, the program will work with the intern to create additional outreach opportunities.  
 
Interns must complete a minimum of 3 psychoeducational outreach presentations over the course of internship.  If, after 3 presentations, an intern’s skills in this area do not meet minimum competency requirements, an intern may be assigned additional outreach presentations to help develop these skills. 


Supervision Skills

The Clinic employs two Master's of Mental Health Counseling Interns during the academic year.  Two doctoral interns are assigned to serve as primary supervisors to the master's intern.  The third doctoral intern serves at the group (or triadic) supervisor.  All supervisors meet for one hour a week of with their master's intern or the group of master's interns.  Supervision assignments are made by the Training Team, in consultation with both doctoral and master's interns.  The assignments shift either once at mid-term or twice (at the end of fall and winter quarters) depending on the training goals of the doctoral interns and the developmental needs of the master's interns.   

When providing supervision of a Graduate Assistant’s individual therapy work, supervising interns are expected to provide one hour a week of regularly scheduled supervision, review tape (outside of the supervision hour) of their supervisee’s therapy sessions on a regular basis (at least one a week).  Interns are also expected to be available to their supervisee for consultation and support as needed and to complete necessary evaluations.

For interns supervising a “Group Intern” during winter quarter, the intern is expected to provide didactic training on Pathways material, mentor the master’s student in the competent facilitation of Pathways, work collaboratively with the master’s student to complete organizational tasks related to the psychoeducational or support group they will co-lead, meet for formal clinical supervision for a minimum of 1 hour a week (may be done in 30 minute segments depending on the need), and to complete necessary evaluation forms. 

Supervision

At this time The Counseling Clinic doctoral internship intermittently has the ability to offer supervision experiences to our interns. Each year, one advanced student from the Mental Health Counseling master's program on campus is employed as a Graduate Assistant and is supervised by a doctoral intern under the supervision of a licensed psychologist. Typically, each winter quarter another master's student completes a "group internship" at the clinic and is supervised by a doctoral intern if the intern's group skills are deemed advanced enough to provide such supervision to the master's student.  Thus, the program can typically guarantee that 2 interns will receive in vivo training in the provision of supervision for at least 1 quarter and up to 3 quarters.  Irrespective of whether an intern is able to supervise or not, all Interns are provided seminars on basic theories and methods of supervision, with an emphasis on the Integrated Developmental Model. Interns are expected to act as peer supervisors the context of group supervision and in case consultation with all staff and not stay in the "learner" role during the whole course of internship.

Ethics and Professional Behavior

During the internship year, interns are expected to exhibit the self-knowledge, attitudes, professional knowledge, and skills for effective and ethical practice. Didactic seminars, supervision, and staff-wide case consultation are forums to learn the ethical, legal, and practice guidelines governing clinical work. Interns are also encouraged to work on their professional development. For example, interns may be encouraged and financially assisted to attend trainings through regional psychological associations. Interns are supported in making the transition from the role of student/intern to that of an entry-level psychologist.

Multicultural Competency

The Counseling Clinic staff value diversity among professional staff, trainees, and students. Our recognition of diversity includes an understanding of aspects of self and identity related to age, disability, ethnicity, gender, religion, social class, and sexual orientation. Issues pertinent to diversity are embedded in all elements of training activities as well as service delivery. Focused training takes place during a series of intern seminars held throughout the internship year. Training seminars are based on APA's Multicultural Counseling Competencies recommendations of increasing competence in the areas of in awareness, knowledge and skills.

Formal Case Presentations

Interns must complete and pass two formal case presentations. Formal case presentations are scheduled at the end of January/beginning of February and at the end of Spring quarter.  The structure of the case presentation is designed to model the general format for disseminating information within most mental health centers, however it will also include sharing of videotaped segments of therapy sessions with the client. 


Grand Rounds

Interns are required to research, create, and deliver a grand rounds presentation to the clinic’s multi-disciplinary staff on a topic of their choice related to health service psychology.  The presentation takes place in the second half of internship, after the interns have had the opportunity to observe and participate in grand rounds presentations made by others.  Each intern will be assigned a senior staff person to provide mentoring and general supervision of the presentation’s development.  


Other Research Opportunities

Interns are supported in working on their dissertations while on internship through their ability to use university/agency resources such as computers, printers, internet access, and the library to complete tasks related to their dissertations.  They are also able to use work time for consultations with their chairs or committee members, encouragement to use slow times in the clinic to work on their dissertations, and the availability to professional leave for dissertation data collection and/or defense.  As interns have time and interest, the clinic also supports interns being involved in ongoing formal and informal research endeavors at the clinic.  These include client satisfaction surveys, looking at treatment outcome/relationship to academic persistence, and, currently, evaluation of our Pathways program.  We caution interns against engaging in outside research unless their dissertations are already complete.  Interns are also given up to $400 for conference attendance and could use this support to present research at a conference.  


 ​Consultation Activities

Interns regularly engage in two primary types of consultation.  The first is consultation with medical staff (providers and nurses) at the Student Medical and Counseling Clinic.  The medical and counseling staff work closely together and cross-refer many students.  Consultations take place both formally during the biweekly Multidisciplinary Team Meeting and informally during conversations with medical staff throughout the week.  Interns are encouraged to have regular contact with medical providers if clients are receiving psychotropic medications or have health conditions that may be directly affecting their mental health – or their mental health is directly affecting their physical presentation.  Interns are also encouraged to consult with medical providers when questions arise regarding the interaction between physical and mental health.  The second is consultation with university case managers.  One or more of the university case managers attend the counseling clinic’s weekly Case Consultation Meeting.  During this time work with common clients may be discussed and high risk students are reviewed.  Through these consultations, interns gain experience navigating the complex legal and ethical issues related to client confidentiality, risk, and serving two clients – the student and the university. 

Less frequent consultation opportunities arise throughout the year.  Some of the typical experiences include:

(a) Consultation with Designated Crisis Responder (DCR).  In Washington State, only DCRs are given the authority to authorize involuntary hospitalizations.  When a client is at significant risk and is either unwilling to safety plan or an adequate safety plan cannot be developed, interns consult with a DCR to determine appropriate next steps, which often includes formal evaluation for hospitalization.  During these evaluations, the intern serves as consultant to the DCR, providing information regarding the client’s risks and other historical data that is important in determining appropriate level of intervention for the client.  Interns can also consult informally with DCRs if a student’s risk does not rise to the level of hospitalization but they are needing an additional perspective on risk issues and how to address them.  Consultations with DCRs are also initiated after consultation with a supervisor or senior staff member.  Keeping with our developmental framework, a supervisor/senior staff person is often closely involved with a first consultation, modeling contact or walking interns through step by step.  Later, interns are coached, as needed, from a distance, and encouraged to take on the primary role in working with DCR. 

(b) Consultation with faculty, staff, parents, or other students concerned about a student or client also occurs on an occasional basis.  The Counseling Clinic Director often fields these contacts, but interns may be asked to serve this role, particularly later in the year.  Such consultation involves active listening to concerns, provision of basic advice regarding how to refer the student of concern to the clinic or other resources or access emergency intervention if needed, and coaching on how to approach difficult conversations such as concern for a student. 

(c) Consultation with off-site providers.  Interns are encouraged to consult with past providers, either medical or counseling, when students transfer care to our clinic.  This is particularly encouraged when a student will continue a relationship with this provider when they return home for breaks. 


Direct Service Requirement

Successful completion of the internship requires a minimum of 500 hours of direct service in the form of individual, couple, crisis, and group counseling; screenings; testing; test interpretation and report writing (25% of time up to 20 hours total); psychoeducational outreach presentations; and provision of supervision to a junior trainee.

It is highly recommended that interns have complete a minimum of 140 hours of direct contact during Fall quarter, 160 hours during Winter quarter, and 150 hours during Spring quarter for a total of 450 hours by the end of Spring quarter.  This leaves 50 hours of direct service for the Summer quarter.  Although it can feel like a lot to achieve these hours on this timeline, client load in the summer can be unpredictable, and interns who do not meet these markers tend to feel quite stressed in the summer.  During university breaks the clinic is closed to clients. Therefore, interns have approximately 39 weeks to accrue face-to-face, direct services hours. 

***Very Important Direct Service Caveat.  Although the inclusion of outreach, testing interpretation, report writing, and supervision as things that “count” toward the direct service requirement is consistent is allowable by state law and accreditation guidelines, many licensing boards will only count direct, face-to-face clinical contact in their definition of direct service when a person applies for licensure. For example, although Washington State law exempts internships that are accredited by APA from a series of specific content requirements for internship experiences that are not accredited, when applying for licensure, the application still requires minimum numbers of face-to-face clinical contact, for which supervision, report writing, and outreach would not count.

Therefore, it is strongly advised that interns work to complete 500 hours of direct, face-to-face client contact over the course of their internship to ensure that they have the most flexibility and options for future professional licensure and functioning.  

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