Education
Training Model
The pre-doctoral training program at FSGC views the internship year as an opportunity for interns to further their integration of psychological theory and knowledge through clinical application. The internship training model is best described as a practitioner-scholar model. In this regard, the internship year is seen as a pivotal point in professional growth when the intern develops clinical skills and critical thinking that aid in his or her progression from student to scholar and from trainee to a clinician, capable of independent and autonomous functioning as a professional psychologist.
The training experience at FSGC provides interns with the opportunity to integrate observation, diagnosis, and application of community and therapeutic interventions while appreciating the idiographic differences and needs of our client population. We believe the professional clinical psychologist, upon graduation from internship at FSGC, should be able to critically examine and apply relevant theoretical and empirical literature to various clinical populations. Importantly, whether clinical intervention is based on laboratory-derived research, clinical theory, or empathetic understanding, it necessarily must be tempered with the exigencies of the setting, population, and community in which it is employed in order to enhance effectiveness and meet client needs.
The integration of science with practice in the internship program is accomplished through the development of the intern's abilities and knowledge in the following areas:
- Exposure to a variety of clinical interventions, including individual, group, and family modalities.
- Increased familiarity with a number of psychotherapeutic interventions.
- Modeling and supervision in the development of critical thinking in the clinical situation using multiple sources of data, which yield a coherent and respectful understanding of the client.
- The use of this understanding to develop appropriate treatment goals and plans.
- Didactics and supervision in a variety of therapeutic interventions supported by theoretically informed and empirically based treatments.
- Enhancement of interpersonal skills that facilitate both professional collaboration and clinical intervention.
- Development of a respectful and sensitive understanding of diverse populations, cultures, and individual differences.
- Legal and ethical issues.
- Development of professional identity.
- Knowledge about the community's resources and their use in treatment planning.
- Professional collaboration and treatment coordination.
The clinical experience is regarded as the medium through which the professional psychologist's creativity, intuition, and empirical observation may serve as the genesis for innovations in the area of applied psychology. The training program at FSGC facilitates the intern's development as a professional psychologist through modeling, supervision, professional collaboration, clinical application, and didactic presentation by professional psychology staff
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