APA Accredited Internship in Clinical and Counseling Psychology

Facilitator: Charlotte Amenkhienan, Ph.D.

• Develop the competency needed to provide counseling to clients from diverse backgrounds.

• To become knowledgeable about different groups in terms of ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, disabilities, socioeconomic status, and religious beliefs.

• To become familiar and establish contact with other offices on campus that offer opportunities for multicultural experiences.

• To demonstrate an awareness of one’s values, beliefs, attitudes, and their influence on therapy.

• The interns attend one and half hours bi-weekly presentations on selected multicultural issues in the fall and spring semesters.

• Interns’ supervisors make arrangements to ensure that interns have clients from diverse backgrounds.

• The interns are provided the opportunity to attend other multicultural presentations and programs on campus.

• Interns facilitate groups for diverse organizations and populations on campus.

• Interns are assigned readings on selected topics.

• The interns attend and actively participate in the bi-weekly presentations on multicultural topics.

• Interns’ multicultural competency is observed in their discussion of multicultural cases during the seminars. and their attention to multicultural issues in case conceptualization demonstrated during supervision and case conferences.
   
• Interns will present a multicultural case to the staff

• Completion of assigned readings.

Diversity Training Seminar/Case Conference

The Cook Counseling Center clinical internship program is committed to diversity through statements in our training manual and by the specific activities which are integral to the program.  Interns are expected to avail themselves of the training opportunities that are offered in the center and that available else where on campus.  The diversity training orientation includes the discussion of multicultural sites, campus organizations, and involvement in outreach programming with diverse groups.  Interns are expected to participate in consultation projects and outreach workshops with multicultural groups on campus.

Diversity seminar meets for 1.5 hours ten times during the academic year.  The seminars are alternated with multiculturally focused case conference.  In preparation for the case conference, interns are expected to review current theoretical models on multicultural counseling, identity development models (racial/bicultural, LGBT, White identity, etc.) and explore implications for counseling.  During the presentation close attention should be paid to self-awareness and one’s “worldview,” particularly how it relates to clinical work.

Every effort should be made by interns to have at least three clients from diverse groups on their caseloads each semester.  Each intern is required to give a cross-cultural case presentation to the entire staff

Multicultural Counseling Case Conference Guidelines

The ability to understand and competently provide a breadth of psychological services to a pluralistic clientele is integral to the functioning of a psychologist.  The multicultural counseling case conference is intended to provide the opportunity to discuss multicultural issues, and to apply the knowledge acquired about theories of racial and identity development and cultural competence to practice.

The following are the guidelines for case presentation:

• Presentation of the case should be about 25 minutes with 25 minutes for its discussion.
• Demographic data (year in school, relationships, ethnic/racial background, etc), presenting problem (s), social and developmental history, psychiatric history including previous treatment, hospitalizations, and medications, family history, and strengths of the client.
• Give a physical description.  Include your own first impressions and feelings.  Make it possible for the group to envision your client.
• Give the group an opportunity to get a sense of the lived experience of the client and your experiences with him or her by using verbatim lines from the therapy.
• Share your personal reactions, feelings towards the client, and anything about yourself that the client stimulated.
• Give a description of the quality of relationship, the course of treatment, including goals, themes, and critical moments
• Discuss the multicultural counseling aspects of the case, be it racial, cultural identity, sexual identity/orientation etc.
• Explain how you have been using theory and applying multicultural competence

Questions/Struggles

Identify your struggles/questions

Be curious and ask questions of your colleagues.

What questions do you have for the group?

You can discuss the case you are considering presenting with your supervisor.  The two of you can decide which case to present, review your presentation and receive feedback before your presentation.

All sessions are held on Wednesdays, 8:30:10:00 in Room 258