Letter to Prospective Applicants
Ohio University's Counseling and Psychological Services is accredited by the American Psychological Association .
Thank you for your interest in the Doctoral Internship in Health Service Psychology at Ohio University Counseling and Psychological Services (CPS). Our internship program is a 2000-hour, 12-month contract.
The CPS mission is to foster a generalist practitioner training in the areas of psychological counseling, education, and consultation to the Ohio University community. We strive to offer services that promote emotional, physical, and social well-being for Ohio University students facing adjustment and developmental challenges while respecting and appreciating all cultural identities of our student population. Further, our goal is to prepare generalist practitioners with the knowledge and skills needed for successful entry-level practice in the field of psychology.
I hope you find the following information provided on this website informative. I'd like to take a minute to highlight a few aspects of our training program that may be helpful to you in your decision-making process.
The CPS training program utilizes a developmental mentorship training philosophy. Our program is designed to build upon previously acquired skills and knowledge while fostering the competencies necessary for delivering professional psychological services. We provide graduated learning opportunities with increased responsibility as the year progresses, and focus on the developmental process and transitions of interns as they move from student/learner in the classroom, to learner/practitioner in the field, to an early-career professional psychologist. As a staff, we are committed to providing ethical, culturally competent mentoring throughout the internship training experience. Intern growth and maturation occur under the guidance of licensed psychologists and other licensed mental health professionals, who value the reciprocal nature of learning within supportive mentoring relationships.
Our staff members are strong generalists with a variety of specialty areas. As part of their professional development, interns will not only have individual supervision with a licensed psychologist, but they will also choose an area of clinical/theoretical focus during the internship year, and apprentice with another staff member in a supportive relationship marked by an individualized pace of learning in their area of focus. This arrangement allows for our interns to gain both a breadth and depth of experience and develop important relationships with members of our staff to foster their professional development.
An important aspect of our philosophy, which is infused throughout our training, is our center's commitment to celebrating and honoring diversity in our relationships, practices, policies, and procedures. We strive to foster an environment of respect for differences and continually work toward creating a safe, affirming, and inclusive environment for all individuals.
You will find a complete description of our training program, including links to our internship handbook and policies and procedures for training on this web page.
Selecting an internship site is an important decision. As you learn more about our internship program, please do not hesitate to reach out with questions or concerns – we are here to help in any way that we can as you are making decisions about this important stage of your career!
Kimberly Sommers, Psy.D. Training Director
sommersk@ohio.edu 740.593.1616