Advanced Practicum Opportunities
For 3rd Year + Doctoral Students)
Note: 2nd year doctoral students complete a year-long practicum under faculty supervision at the Psychological Services Center, our fee-for-service community clinic in downtown Albany. Visit this page for more information about PSC.
Capital District Psychiatric Center (State Psychiatric Center), Albany
Primary Responsibilities: Member of multi-disciplinary treatment team. Individual therapy, groups, and psychological assessments.
Population: Severely ill outpatient adults.
Days per Week/Duration: 1.5 to 2 days. Academic year or year-round, but not summer only.
Prerequisites: Sufficient therapy skills to function independently, prefers a student with some assessment experience, but would consider a student who has only taken assessment courses.
Union College Counseling Center, Schenectady
Primary Responsibilities: Individual counseling, possibility of group work, outreach.
Population: College/undergraduate students
Days per Week/Duration: 12-15 hrs per week, M-F 8:30-5, and 2-3 evening outreach workshops (1 hr. each) over the year (can be during the day if necessary, but evenings are preferable).
NeuroPsychological Rehabilitation Services, Albany
Primary Responsibilities: Member of a treatment team providing individual and small group cognitive remediation and adjustment counseling to individuals with acquired brain injury. This experience provides the student with an in-depth exposure to the cognitive process that underlie thinking and reasoning including attention and concentration, memory processes, and higher level intellectual functioning. It also provides a thorough exposure to a systematic approach to address bereavement, personal loss, role changes and changes in potential that are part of the human experience. Limited opportunities for neurological assessment are also available. The focus of treatment includes:
- Educating participants about the effects of their brain injury on their ability to function in a manner consistent with their abilities prior to the injury
- Teaching compensation strategies to ameliorate the effect of deficits;
- Providing a therapeutic community within which the individual can build self-esteem, accept the changes that the injury has caused, be at peace with and draw satisfaction from the present and feel that life, as is, is a worthwhile experience.
Population: Adults and adolescents with acquired brain injuries
Days per Week/Duration: 2 days, two semesters to one year, may start in summer. Must be available at least 2 of 3 days (Tues, Wed, or Thurs), 9 a.m. – 2 p.m.
Pre-requisites: Intelligence testing course desirable, minimum one year at PSC or prior counseling experience.
Additional Information: Extensive supervision, narrow focus on brain pathology
Greene County Community Mental Health Center, Greene County
Primary Responsibilities: Individual therapy with adults (short- and long-term), crisis management, consultation with external collaterals (e.g., legal system, substance abuse providers, case managers), and collaboration with prescribers. Additional training may be available in psychological testing, DBT groups, and custody evaluations. Other training opportunities available in various clinical meetings and groups.
Population: Mostly rural, ethnically homogeneous, otherwise diverse (age, SES, gender, family structure, disabilities), wide range of diagnoses and issues, including trauma, substance abuse, chronic pain, domestic violence, unemployment, legal involvement.
Days per Week/Duration: 2 days; some evening hours possible on T and Th. Require full year or at least 11-month commitment. Individual and group supervision, including case presentations.
Additional information: Support/validation to work independently in a multidisciplinary setting. Staff highly supportive and diverse in terms of training and perspective.
Stratton Veterans Administration Medical Center, Albany
Primary Responsibilities: Varies by rotation.
Population: Veterans.
Multiple Placements:
Behavioral Health Recovery Program
The Behavioral Health Recovery Program provides a range of treatment interventions to veterans with serious mental illness. The majority of treatment is provided in a recovery and rehabilitation oriented setting, with individual, group and milieu therapies comprising the primary treatment modalities. Practicum students are provided with the opportunity to work in a variety of clinical roles. Available clinical activities include: 1) working as a co-facilitator of psychotherapy or psychoeducational groups; 2) conducting psychological assessments; 3) conducting intake evaluations; 4) coordinating certain aspects of milieu treatment (e.g. lunch program, incentive therapy program); 5) participating in clinical treatment planning meetings; and, if available for two semesters, 6) providing individual therapy/case management.
Chemical Dependency Rehabilitation Program
The Stratton VAMC provides a broad array of substance abuse services as part of the Upstate Veterans Integrated Services Network (VISN) along with, Syracuse VAMC, Buffalo VAMC, Canandaigua VAMC, and Bath VAMC. A full continuum of care is available for veterans with substance abuse problems, who meet the eligibility requirements. At this facility 3 programs are offered.
- Substance Abuse Residential Rehabilitation Treatment Program (SARRTP): This program provides temporary housing while patients are enrolled in the Track I program. Patients for whom housing is unstable, live too far away, or are homeless are eligible.
- Track I: This program is a half day, 5 days a week, for approximately 6-8 weeks depending on the veterans' needs. It involves both individual and group counseling, educational classes, skill building and adventure based learning. This program is for patients assessed as needing an intensive program but for whom residential or inpatient is not necessary at time of referral.
- Track II & III: This program consists of individual and group sessions with the major emphasis however, being placed on weekly group treatment. The educational phase (Track II) can consist of a ten week evening program (2 times a week) or a weekly daytime program for twenty weeks. Upon completion of the educational program, the veteran is enrolled in a weekly support group (Track III). The program can go up until 2 years if deemed necessary. The outpatient program provides a level of care for the patient whose drug or alcohol problem is not as severe at the present time as those who would enter Track I or Residential Care. Practicum students are involved in the total program but in the past have focused on team treatment planning, group therapy, initial screenings and formal assessments.
Behavioral Health Clinic
The BHC is an outpatient psychiatric clinic serving veterans and their families. Students function as members of a large multidisciplinary team carrying a caseload of 3 - 5 patients. Practicum students attend the weekly clinic case conference series and make one presentation to the clinic during their rotation. Supervision takes place both individually and through a weekly group supervision that also includes pre-doctoral psychology interns and uses audio taping of therapy sessions. Additional supervision for postdoctoral residents may also be available. The population served by the BHC is relatively severe in terms of psychopathology for an outpatient setting and predominant diagnoses include PTSD, depressive spectrum, and schizophrenic spectrum disorders.
Sub-Acute Rehab, Inpatient Hospice, and Extended Care Medical Units
Practicum may include providing individual and group psychotherapy, family interventions, psychological and cognitive assessment, behavioral interventions, education to staff on inpatient medical units. Students interface with medical providers, physical and recreation therapists, nursing staff, administration, behavioral health providers and all members of the multidisciplinary team. An array of behavioral tools and theoretical perspectives are applied to the medical setting including most especially behavioral, existential and systemic interventions.
Albany Medical Center, Albany
Multiple Placements
Outpatient Clinic (on Hackett Blvd)
Primary Responsibilities: Intakes, individual therapy, psychological assessments, perhaps group work. Sit in on selected internship seminars and teaching days/workshops.
Population: Adults in an outpatient setting.
Days per Week/Duration: 1.5 to 2 days, academic-year or year-round, but not summer only.
E-2 Inpatient Psychiatry Clinic (Main hospital, New Scotland Ave.)
Primary Responsibilities: Member of multidisciplinary team; evaluate patients daily (behavioral planning within the team); short-term supportive, goal-directed individual therapy oriented toward re-integration into the community, assist with documentation, intakes; assessment batteries and integrative psychodiagnostic reports; opportunity to co-facilitate groups -- mindfulness, DBT, perhaps Yalom-type interpersonal; perhaps mentalization (attachment-oriented).
Days per Week/Duration: 1.5 to 2 days, academic year, at least one morning. Desirable to attend Grand Rounds on Wednesdays from 11am-noon.
Population: Patients (all adults) have acute psychiatric needs, average stay 12-13 days.
Additional Information: Patients are seen every morning by the entire team. Completion of ECPY 740 or equivalent IQ course essential. Testing includes MMPI-2, WAIS, projectives, neuropsych, potentially dementia (taught to the practicum students by the supervisor). Individuand group supervision (with graduate students from other programs).
