Doctoral Clinical Psychology Internship

Program Director Denise Rodriguez-Esquivel, PhD, and Associate Program Director Kyle Suhr, PhDThe Clinical Psychology Internship in the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Arizona College of Medicine, funded by the Health Resources and Services Administration Behavioral Health Workforce Education and Training grant, follows a scientist-practitioner model. Our program prepares interns guided by a model of collaborative, team-based care and we work in conjunction with the UArizona College of Nursing's faculty and its psychiatric nurse practitioner doctoral students.

We seek doctoral internship candidates who are committed to the science and practice of clinical psychology, and who appreciate how psychological science both informs and is influenced by clinical practice. Our program celebrates diversity, and interns from different racial, ethnic, cultural, geographic, religious, linguistic, gender expression, and sexual orientations who are interested in serving high-need and high-demand areas are encouraged to apply. Opportunities include working with adults across the life span and children and adolescents and contributing to the advancement of knowledge in the field.

Interns receive supervised training at culturally and linguistically diverse sites that provide integrated care and are in high need/high demand areas. There are two longitudinal tracks: Adult (three positions) and Child/Adolescent (two positions) and many shorter rotations. Regardless of their interest in a particular age group, interns are allowed to select rotations that focus on an age-based clinical population of the opposite clinical track they are in.

Our program’s clinical training methods are primarily experiential, under close supervision, and complemented by formal and informal didactic activities. Clinical supervisors provide supervision tailored to the intern’s abilities and training needs with the goal of increasing responsibility and independence throughout the internship year. The integration of science and practice is accomplished formally via trainings, seminars, case conferences, and Grand Rounds that emphasize empirically supported findings, and informally through role modeling and case-based literature reviews.