The Psychology Service at the Central Alabama Veterans Health Care System (CAVHCS) is comprised of eleven full-time psychologists. One psychologist, Dr. Campbell, is the Acting Chief of Psychology and serves as the internship Director of Training. In addition to a psychology internship offered to graduate students from APA-accredited Doctoral Psychology programs, the Psychology Service generally provides training to a practicum student pursuing their Doctoral degree in Clinical Psychology at Auburn University.
The mission of the Psychology Internship at CAVHCS is to provide excellent pre-doctoral training to students while serving an ethnically balanced and diagnostically diverse population of veterans. In carrying out this mission, the Psychology Staff focuses on comprehensive development of the student in a variety of specialized settings, including mental health, geriatrics and extended care, rehabilitation, and primary care. The Psychology staff assumes the responsibility to train each student in psychological assessment and the treatment of individuals, families, and groups, and to prepare them for the clinical, ethical, and technical demands of a challenging career in psychology. This program is distinctive in providing the intern with a variety of role models, theoretical orientations and experiences within a well-structured framework. Staff members work well together and extend the collegial atmosphere to interns. The program attempts to provide interns with an appropriate blend of nurturance and challenge while they develop greater clinical competence and autonomy.
Currently, interns have the following rotations available to them:
- Veteran's Industries/CWT-TR
- Primary Care
- Rehabilitation Psychology Rotation
- Post Traumatic Stress Disorder Clinical Team
- Neuropsychological Testing
- Sexual Trauma Therapy
- Outpatient Mental Health Clinic
- High Intensity Psychiatric Unit
- Operation Iraqi Freedom/Operation Enduring Freedom Seamless Transition
- Compensations and Pensions
In designing the current internship program, CAVHCS psychologists have incorporated the VA's expanded emphasis on outpatient-based models of service delivery. The training model is that of practitioner-scholar, with emphasis placed upon facilitating intern mastery of the skills and competencies required in daily practice by professional psychologists. With its commitment to enhancing and developing the cultural competence of its interns, the internship program at CAVHCS provides opportunities for training in both metropolitan and rural settings with a culturally rich and multiethnic staff and patient population.
The CAVHCS Psychology Internship is registered with the Association of Psychology Postdoctoral and Internship Centers (APPIC; http://www.appic.org). A complete description of application procedures and candidate requirements is available at the VA Psychology Training Web Site.
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