Clinical Rotations – Student Health and Counseling track (**NEW**)

Clinical Rotations – Student Health and Counseling track (**NEW**)

Student Health and Counseling is the primary care and psychological care branch of Wellness at Penn. Our team provides accessible, high-quality care for students of all levels during their academic journey. We deliver services for acute and chronic health problems, preventative health care, as well as mental health counseling, crisis management, and consultations. Student Health and Counseling exists as an integrated unit although the centers are located one block from each other.

Regarding psychological care, Student Health and Counseling provides primarily short-term individual therapy and group therapy to a population of high-achieving students from diverse ethnic, racial, geographic and socioeconomic backgrounds. We see the full spectrum of diagnostic categories and clinical presentations, with the most frequent presenting concerns being depression, anxiety, low self-esteem, stress and academics, and relationship problems.  This track is modeled after traditional college counseling center internships. There will not be separate rotations. The majority of the internship time and all of the clinical services will occur at Student Health and Counseling.

Doctoral interns at Student Health and Counseling receive training and experience in performing the central responsibilities of a psychologist in a multidisciplinary counseling center setting. These include individual psychotherapy, group therapy, diagnostic assessment through drop-in and intake interviews, crisis management, and outreach and consultation. We strive to foster interns’ growth through an emphasis on self-awareness, cultural competency, and the impact of social identities on all aspects of our work. Awareness of the cultural identities of both therapist and client is integral to case discussions in individual and group supervision and multicultural perspective is infused into training seminars. Professional identity development is a priority, as interns evolve from experienced trainees toward independent practitioners over the course of the year. We aspire to train interns to become highly ethical and competent generalists who have acquired skills to intervene directly with clients in the role of clinician and in the campus community in the roles of consultant and advocate.

Interns participate in weekly staff meetings and multidisciplinary case consultation Team, and they have the option of participating on specific teams such as eating concerns and the LGBTQ+ Working Group. Interns are supervised by a licensed psychologist for two hours each week on their individual therapy clients and they receive weekly supervision on their group therapy activities. Training seminars include Professional Topics, Group Therapy, and the Social Identity Exploration/Social Justice series, which highlights self-knowledge, social identities, themes of power, privilege and oppression, and the role of psychologist as advocate. Interns provide individual supervision to psychology externs and have weekly supervision of supervision, which is grounded in relational-cultural theory. Four hours per week of research time are designated to support successful dissertation completion or to participate in center-related research.

Student Health and Counseling provides comprehensive holistic care to University of Pennsylvania students. As a doctoral intern you will receive training and experience in performing the central responsibilities of a psychologist in a multidisciplinary university counseling environment. Our professional staff consists of clinical psychologists, counseling psychologists, psychiatrists, psychiatric nurse practitioners, social workers, licensed professional counselors, behavioral health consultants, and trainees.  There are opportunities to participate in individual psychotherapy, group therapy, same day/urgent diagnostic assessment, crisis management, and consultation. We strive to foster an intern’s growth through an emphasis on self-awareness, cultural competency, collaboration, and the impact of social identities on all aspects of their work. At Student Health and Counseling we provide primarily short-term individual therapy and group therapy to a population of high-achieving students from diverse ethnic, racial, geographic and socioeconomic backgrounds.  Interns will experience a spectrum of diagnostic categories and clinical presentations including depression, anxiety, low self-esteem, academic stress, disordered eating, and relationship problems. 

Primary Supervisor: Michele Downie, PhD, Associate Director