Behavioral Medicine Training

Doctoral Internship in Health Service Psychology at CVCH offers the following training highlights and areas of focus: 

• Biopsychosocial-spiritual clinical framework anchored in trauma-informed care; 
• Consultation with medical providers and interdisciplinary functioning within the integrated primary care/community healthcare setting; 
• Brief intervention as well as long-term therapy for individuals, couples, families, and groups of all ages and from diverse backgrounds (with special emphasis on populations that are rural, underserved, and frequently marginalized, with high incidence of trauma and PTSD, and/or facing complex health disparities);
• Many of our patients are monolingual Spanish-speaking (we provide interpretation services). For over 40 years, CVCH has served the low-income, uninsured, and migrant and seasonal farm worker populations of North Central Washington State as its target population.
• Acute and chronic illness management for a variety of frequently comorbid medical and behavioral health conditions, such as chronic pain, diabetes, trauma/PTSD, dual diagnoses, and many others; 
• Special emphasis on crisis management skills, psychopharmacology, applied assessment, and cultural humility, and working with marginalized and underserved populations. 

For more information, please review our Behavioral Medicine Doctoral Internship Manual. 

DOCTORAL INTERNSHIP:
INTERN RECRUITMENT, ELIGIBILITY, and APPLICATION PROCESS 

1. INTERN RECRUITMENT & SELECTION

      a. CVCH Doctoral Internship program upholds a strong commitment to recruitment of diverse interns. We welcome applicants from diverse personal and cultural backgrounds. Additional details are outlined in our Diversity Statement. 

       b. The program recognizes that integrated primary care is a rapidly growing and expanding area of practice for psychologists that attracts applicants from a variety of professional backgrounds. We welcome applicants with prior experience in integrated primary care, or another medical setting; however, we also accept applicants without such prior experience, if they express interest in acquiring knowledge, skills, and attitudes required for our setting. 

      c. Interns who are considered the best fit for the program have prior clinical experience that would be best be described as generalist in nature; and have prior experience and/or interest in integrated primary care and/or another medical setting. Additionally, we seek applicants who possess the right interpersonal skills and temperament that is optimal to support working with a wide range of diverse medical and psychiatric patients and collaborating with medical providers and non-mental health providers on the team. Many of our patients have been marginalized and have experienced significant trauma and health disparities. Thus, we prefer interns who exhibit emotional maturity and show appropriate respect and sensitivity to these issues. Finally, we select interns who are intellectually curious, value life-long learning, critical thinking, self-reflection, and who are committed to creating and applying scientific research and other professional and scholarly literature to inform their professional activities. 

2. ELIGIBILITY AND REQUIREMENTS TO APPLY

In addition to the criteria described above, the interns are expected to meet the following requirements to apply: 

    a. Be enrolled in an APA-accredited doctoral degree program in professional psychology (i.e., clinical or counseling) and have completed at a minimum three years of graduate course work and study; 

    b. Have earned a master’s degree in psychology, mental health counseling, social work, marriage and family therapy, or another related field before the start of internship, and be eligible for master’s level licensure in Washington State at that Associate-level or above. Our agency provides extensive support in obtaining the required licensure AFTER you match with us. Please visit the Department of Health, Mental Health Professions website for more details at www.doh.wa.gov; 

    c. Have successfully passed comprehensive, or other qualifying examination and have their dissertation or doctoral research project proposal approved by the start of internship;

   d. Have completed at a minimum 450 combined Intervention and Assessment hours (i.e., a minimum of 400 Intervention and a minimum of 50 Assessment hours); and 

   e. Have formal approval from the intern’s academic program to go on internship and participate in the APPIC’s match process.

3. APPLICATION PROCESS

As a member in good standing of APPIC, the program’s recruitment and selection procedures follow APPIC guidelines. We participate in the National Match Service and follow the APPIC Match Policies. We use the standard APPIC Online Application for Psychology Internship (AAPI) that can be obtained at the following website: www.appic.org.  As part of the complete standard APPIC application, we require a cover letter, CV, graduate transcripts, and three letters of recommendation. To be considered for internship, we must receive the application materials by the date listed on our website and APPIC directory. The deadline to apply varies from year to year but is typically in the first week of December.