Educational psychology students match for clinical internships

Eight students in the Combined Program in Counseling and School Psychology at The Florida State University have been matched with agencies to complete the clinical training portion of their doctoral studies.

“Our students did exceptionally well this year,” said Steven Pfeiffer, a professor and director of clinical training in the university’s College of Education. “The national internship match in psychology is very competitive. This year, 23 percent of the 3,669 applicants who registered for internships did not match.”

The students who will be participating in internships, and the locations of those internships, are as follows:

• Sara Bertoch (VA Medical Center – North Chicago, North Chicago, Ill.)
• Vernessa Bowles (Applewood Center Inc., Cleveland)
• Ashley Chason (Arkansas Division Behavioral Health Services, Little Rock, Ark.)
• Erin Clevenger (Berea Children’s Home and Family Services, Cleveland)
• Danny Dieringer (Ancora Psychiatric Hospital, Hammonton, NJ),
• John Macfarlane (Colorado Department of Corrections, Canon City, Colo.)
• Stefanie Rodrigues (Georgia Southern College, Student Counseling Services, Statesboro, Ga.)
• Benetta Wholuba (Renaissance Crossroads Track, East Petersburg, Pa.)

All eight of the students accepted their match and will begin the internship in July or August of this year.

During the internship experience, students have the opportunity to gain supervised professional experience in key components of professional practice, including clinical diagnosis, psychological assessment, counseling/psychotherapy and consultation. Depending on their selected areas of study and the particular internship, students also receive more specific personalized training.

For example, one of the students in this year’s intern group, John Macfarlane, will receive forensic training at the Colorado Department of Corrections, while another, Benetta Wholuba, will gain experience in addictions treatment at the Renaissance Crossroads Track in Pennsylvania.

While completing the internship, fourth- and fifth-year doctoral students are supervised both by licensed psychologists at the sites of their internships and by Pfeiffer, the director of clinical training in their academic program at Florida State. While the on-site supervisors oversee the clinical aspects and guide the students through their daily responsibilities, Pfeiffer communicates regularly with the students to ensure compliance with requirements and provide mentoring and support.

“The pre-doctoral internship is the capstone or culminating clinical training experience for students in doctoral programs in professional psychology,” Pfeiffer said. “The internship is a full-year training experience under close supervision in a health-care setting, such as a VA hospital, university counseling center, outpatient mental health clinic, medical center or school district.”

Students apply to serve in internships through the Association of Psychology Postdoctoral and Internship Centers’ National Match Program. In doing so, they compete with students from clinical and counseling psychology programs throughout the country. The yearlong internship provides benefits to the students in addition to valuable supervised clinical experience. These include a salary, health insurance, and the opportunity to complete their dissertations and conduct clinical research.

“During the internship year, interns develop competence in diagnosis, assessment, counseling and consultation, skills first introduced in the classroom and in a variety of on- and off-campus practicum settings,” Pfeiffer said.

The Combined Program in Counseling Psychology and School Psychology is housed in the Department of Educational Psychology and Learning Systems within Florida State’s College of Education. It is the only program of its kind in Florida, and one of only 10 nationally accredited programs in the United States that integrate training in two or more areas of professional psychology.