Doctoral Internship Program | Pacific Psychology & Comprehensive Health Clinic

Doctoral Internship Program

The Pacific Psychology and Comprehensive Health (PCH) Clinics offers a 2,000 hour one-year, doctoral psychology internship to prepare qualified graduate students for entry level professional practice in health service psychology. Our internship is currently accredited by the American Psychological Association (APA).

We recognize the adverse impact of the novel coronavirus and the COVID-19 pandemic on accrual of clinical training hours. While we will still consider experiential hours, we will suspend the minimum hours requirements for applicants who were adversely impacted by COVID. We encourage applicants whose training hours fall short of our published number, but who otherwise meet all other minimum requirements, to apply.

Program Overview

The Pacific Psychology and Comprehensive Health (PCH) Clinics, which is part of Pacific University’s School of Graduate Psychology, offers a 2000 hour, one-year, full-time, doctoral internship to prepare entry-level health service psychologists for professional practice. We do not accept part-time interns. Our internship will start July 20, 2022 and end on August 4, 2023. Interns get approximately 6 weeks of leave during the year, which includes release time for their dissertation, graduation, and interviews for their next position.

For the 2022-2023 training year there will be two tracks:

• Adult Track (#1526-12) will have four slots and
• Youth and Family Track (#1526-13) will have one slot

Adult Track interns provide therapy and psychological assessment to adults and older adolescents. We require a minimum of 400 intervention and 100 assessment hours with at least 50% of hours accrued were with adult clients. Note: due to COVID-19 we will suspend the minimum hours requirements for applicants who were adversely impacted by COVID. We encourage applicants whose training hours fall short of our published number, but who otherwise meet all other minimum requirements, to apply.

Youth and Family Track interns will be placed on child therapy and assessment teams. Based on client demands, however, these interns may have a few adult clients on their caseloads. We require a minimum of 400 intervention and 100 assessment hours with at least 50% of hours accrued were with youth and family clients. 

Interns will receive training in ten competency domains: intervention, assessment, interprofessional collaboration, consultation, supervision, community outreach, diversity, practitioner-scholar methodology, professionalism, and ethical practice.

Interns work approximately 50 hours per week. Below is an estimate of how interns spend their time:

• Providing therapy: 20%
• Conducting assessments: 20%
• Engaging in interprofessional collaborations: 15%
• Providing supervision and consultation: 15%
• Conducting outreach: 10%
• Receiving supervision and participating in training seminars: 20%

Of the 25 interns admitted to the PCH internship program over the past five years:

• 56% were culturally diverse
• 20% were immigrants
• 24% identified as sexual minorities
• 32% were bilingual
• 20% identified as male, 80% identified as female; 0% identified as transgender
• 10% were covered by the Americans with Disabilities Act
• 44% were seeking PhDs; 56% pursued PsyDs 

The program or institution does not require students, trainees, and/or staff (faculty) to comply with specific policies or practices related to the institution’s affiliation or purpose? (Such policies or practices may include, but are not limited to, admissions, hiring, retention policies, and/or requirements for completion that express mission and values.)

Our ideal interns have developed intermediate competency with therapy and assessment and are eager to expand their skills.

Additionally, ideal interns:

• are self‐directed while being an active team member
• know their strengths  while being humble
• are efficient and productive with attention to detail
• are mature,  curious and a desire to deepen  their competencies
• work hard and have effective self‐care strategies at work and outside work
• are self‐aware and work well in a fast‐paced environment with many facets
• strive to do their best as psychologists while maintaining a sense of humor
• are interested in a variety of roles psychologist can play, beyond clinical services

Our internship is NOT a good fit for interns who:

• want to focus only on therapy and assessment
• are disinterested in outreach, integrated care, or interprofessional collaboration
• struggle with working autonomously
• lack leadership skills or disinterested in mentoring practicum I students
• are easily overwhelmed  when required to multi‐task
• are stressed  by interruption‐rich environments

Total Direct Contact Intervention Hours: Yes    Amount: 400* Total
Direct Contact Assessment Hours: Yes    Amount: 100* Total
*Note: these target hours are flexible for applicants adversely impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic

Financial and Other Benefit Support for Upcoming Training Year

*Note: Programs are not required by the Commission on Accreditation to provide all benefits listed in this table.

Initial Post-Internship Positions 
(Provide an Aggregated Tally for the Preceding 3 Cohorts)

Note: “PD” = Post-doctoral residency position; “EP” = Employed Position. Each individual represented in this table should be counted only one time. For former trainees working in more than one setting, select the setting that represents their primary position.

PCH Internship’s Mission

Preparing interns for entry-level professional practice in clinical and counseling psychology who are competent to provide assessment, therapy, and outreach in a culturally-responsive manner. As Health Service Psychologists, our graduating interns have the foundational skills to work inter-professionally in a variety of healthcare settings.

The PCH Clinics are a behavioral health home and an integrated care clinic providing mental health and primary care services to diverse communities, marginalized groups, and underserved individuals across the lifespan. The PCH Clinics are part of the School of Graduate Psychology (SGP) at Pacific University and use qualified mental health professionals (QMHPs) and qualified mental health interns (QMHIs) as well as other healthcare professions trainees to provide integrated care and work interprofessionally.

The PCH Clinics' internship training approach aligns with the practitioner-scholar model of psychology training. Within the practitioner-scholar model, this program has adopted a local clinical scientist approach (Stricker & Trierweiler, 1995). This approach focuses on the development of professional and ethical practitioners who think critically and apply established or validated psychological theories, scientific principles, and interventions to assist a range of clinical populations.

Interns work with a variety of supervisors and intern seminar leaders. Each intern has a primary and secondary therapy supervisor along with an assessment supervisor. They interact with the seminar leaders of Diversity, Interprofessional Collaboration, Community Outreach, and Professional Development & Self Care seminars.

The supervisory philosophy of the internship program gives interns progressively greater autonomy, beginning with a more directive approach during the first third of the year. Therapy supervisors use guided questioning and consultation during interns’ individual supervision to facilitate interns’ development as a supervisor during the middle third of the training year. In the last third of the year, supervisors use a more non-directive stance in supporting the interns’ development toward becoming clinical supervisors. This overall approach to supervision draws from the integrated developmental model of supervision developed by Stoltenberg and his colleagues (Stoltenberg & Delworth, 1987), which recognizes that supervisees require different types of supervision depending on their developmental level in a particular domain (Falender and Shafranske, 2004; McNeil and Stoltenberg, 2015).

Interns will receive training in ten competency domains: intervention, assessment, interprofessional collaboration, consultation, supervision, community outreach, diversity, practitioner-scholar methodology, professionalism, and ethical practice.

Clinic Locations

Our Portland location is at 1411 SW Morrison Street, and our Hillsboro clinic is at 222 SE 8^th Ave. Both locations are easily accessible via TriMet. We are open until 6pm Monday-Thursday, 9-5pm on Fridays. 

The Pacific Psychology and Comprehensive Health Clinics’ Psychology Internship Program is accredited by APA. Questions related to the program’s accredited status should be directed to the Commission on Accreditation:

Office of Program Consultation and Accreditation
American Psychological Association
750 1st Street, NE, Washington, DC 2002
Phone: (202) 336-5979/Email: apaaccred@apa.org
Web: www.apa.og/ed/accreditation