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THE CORE HALF-TIME TRAINEE EXPERIENCE
Psychotherapy Supervision
Trainees receive one-to-one supervision of their individual, group,
family, child/adolescent, and couples therapy. Supervisors are drawn
from all the mental health disciplines, have staff positions in
Cambridge Health Alliance, are on the faculty of the Harvard Medical
School appointed through the Cambridge Health Alliance Department
of Psychiatry, or both. Each trainee receives two to three hours
per week of individual supervision for their outpatient cases and
one hour per week of supervision for psychological testing. Additional
supervision is provided as needed for child and adolescent work,
adult inpatient work, and group, family and couples treatment, and
these supplemental supervisions usually include two hours by the
secondary site placement. The quality of supervision and the clinical
work with patients are viewed by interns as two of the strongest
parts of the training program.
Testing and Testing Supervision
In addition to psychotherapy, the program emphasizes the development
of psychodiagnostic and clinical inference skills. For trainees
who are placed in settings that require testing, they typically
administer two to three test batteries per year, for which they
ordinarily receive three hours of testing supervision per battery.
The high ratio of supervision to testing time provides an opportunity
to analyze the data in depth, and to understand the person's psychopathology
and adaptive capacities. A psychological testing seminar is offered
to (and required of) students who conduct testing as part of their
placement. This seminar provides theoretical perspectives as well
as hands-on practice in scoring, coding, and interpreting test data.
Precepting
The Managing Director of Half-time Training and the respective Site
Director serve as program preceptors who advise and advocate for
the trainee within the total program. Trainees also have a psychology
preceptor at each site who oversees the work of the trainee, and
makes suggestions to help tailor the program around case assignments
and seminars. Trainees meet weekly with Preceptors who help coordinate
the evaluations at mid year and year end. Trainees meet regularly
with the Managing Director of Half-time Training who also approves
all evaluation documents for students in the program.
Seminars and Conferences
Each training site offers required seminars on topics relevant to
their specific patient population and treatment modality. In addition,
half-time trainees are required to attend a weekly Professional
Development Seminar with Drs. Seidman, Harney and Leary, as mentioned
above. This seminar addresses professional clinical issues relevant
to all graduate students in psychology, such as making use of supervision,
clinical interviewing and case presentation, multicultural issues,
and preparing for internship.
Additional Seminar Options
The Cambridge Health Alliance Department of Psychiatry also has
an extensive offering of elective seminars and conferences which
are available to the trainee, with topics such as the treatment
of severely disturbed persons from various theoretical orientations,
behavioral medicine, trauma, couples and family therapy, treatment
of narcissism, cross-cultural issues, and psychopharmacology. Attendance
is recommended at the weekly academic Grand Rounds draws speakers
on current clinical, theoretical, and research issues. Continuing
Education courses are offered throughout the year sponsored by the
Department of Psychiatry alone, or jointly with the Harvard Medical
School. These optional courses include nationally recognized speakers
on topics such as Psychotherapy, Substance Abuse, Suicide, Women's
and Men's Issues, Spirituality, Couples and Family Treatment, and
Psychopharmacology. Interns attend these conferences at a scholarship
rate as trainees of Harvard Medical School and Cambridge Health
Alliance.
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