Training Philosophy

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  • Feeling the burnout from college life? 🔥 Let's extinguish those flames with a little help from Ray from PEP! 💫 Happy Monday!

Join our PEP team! Applications are now open. Simply visit cglink.me/2d7/s95009 or the link in our bio to apply!
  • Together, let's explore the mental wellness of those who devote themselves to assisting others! 

To register for this event, visit Mason360 or cglink.me/2d7/r2265745
  • Welcome to PEP talks! Enter Aseeyah, the self-care advocate from PEP, highlighting the importance of rest, nutrition, exercise, and relaxation to manage busy schedules and put your well-being first.

Join our PEP team! Applications are now open. Simply visit cglink.me/2d7/s95009 or the link in our bio to apply!
  • Happy International Women's Day! Swipe to learn more about women’s mental health and keep the conversation going.
  • Meet our incredible PEP team dedicated to improving mental well-being and being a pillar of support for our Mason students! Together, we're breaking stigma and spreading awareness. 🌟
•
Interested in being a peer educator for CAPS? Keep an eye out for next year's PEP cohort application that will be posted soon!
Feeling the burnout from college life? 🔥 Let's extinguish those flames with a little help from Ray from PEP! 💫 Happy Monday! Join our PEP team! Applications are now open. Simply visit cglink.me/2d7/s95009 or the link in our bio to apply!
20 hours ago
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Together, let's explore the mental wellness of those who devote themselves to assisting others! 

To register for this event, visit Mason360 or cglink.me/2d7/r2265745
Together, let's explore the mental wellness of those who devote themselves to assisting others! To register for this event, visit Mason360 or cglink.me/2d7/r2265745
6 days ago
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Welcome to PEP talks! Enter Aseeyah, the self-care advocate from PEP, highlighting the importance of rest, nutrition, exercise, and relaxation to manage busy schedules and put your well-being first. Join our PEP team! Applications are now open. Simply visit cglink.me/2d7/s95009 or the link in our bio to apply!
1 week ago
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Happy International Women's Day! Swipe to learn more about women’s mental health and keep the conversation going.
Happy International Women's Day! Swipe to learn more about women’s mental health and keep the conversation going.
Happy International Women's Day! Swipe to learn more about women’s mental health and keep the conversation going.
Happy International Women's Day! Swipe to learn more about women’s mental health and keep the conversation going.
2 weeks ago
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Meet our incredible PEP team dedicated to improving mental well-being and being a pillar of support for our Mason students! Together, we're breaking stigma and spreading awareness. 🌟 • Interested in being a peer educator for CAPS? Keep an eye out for next year's PEP cohort application that will be posted soon!
2 weeks ago
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The CAPS Doctoral Internship in Health Service Psychology is a full-time, 12-month internship based on the practitioner-scholar model. The training program provides a supportive learning environment that fosters the development of cultural and ethical considerations into all aspects of service delivery and professional development. The foundation of the training model is based on a program of supervised, sequential, and experiential psychological practices. Each intern is expected to develop strong clinical skills with clients from diverse cultural backgrounds and gain a secure sense of self as a culturally informed and ethical psychology professional who can practice in a variety of settings. The psychology internship also provides an opportunity to interact with mental health practitioners from a number of disciplines (psychology, social work, counseling, and psychiatry) within a fast-paced center at a large public university.

Diversity: A foundational aspect of the CAPS training philosophy is the necessity to consider cultural and contextual factors in all of the ways that we interact with students and with each other. The student population at Mason is diverse, and as such, we strive to ensure that our services acknowledge their lived experiences and address their needs as we seek to provide culturally relevant clinical services and outreach programs. We foster this goal by using a contextual and multicultural clinical and prevention framework. Interns and staff are encouraged to examine their own personal and professional context and intersecting identities as well as the context of clients they serve through ongoing learning and self-reflection.

Mentorship: Another aspect of our training model is mentorship. CAPS recognizes that interns are emerging psychologists who are transitioning from graduate students to professionals. At our center, interns are integrated fully into our team and are given increasing levels of autonomy that consider developmental levels in addition to specific needs for professional growth. Interns have many formal and informal opportunities to interact with CAPS staff. Our center has an open-door policy, encouraging interns to interact with CAPS staff through mutually respectful relationships.

Supportive Environment: We are a warm and cohesive group and hold a genuine respect for the interns who are part of our team. Self-care and well-being are regularly discussed. The use of strength-based, culturally attuned, and developmentally-informed informal and formal feedback is used to help interns work toward their professional goals and fulfill the expectations of the internship year. In turn, we utilize input from interns on a regular basis to make enhancements and modifications to the program. Our respect and support for interns is reflected in various opportunities associated with the training year, such as their participation in staff meetings and opportunities to advocate for their goals related to their internship year.

Integration of scholarly knowledge and practice: Another cornerstone of the philosophical foundation of the psychology internship is a belief in the necessity of integrating theory, practice, and research in a supervised experience. Interns have the opportunity to implement research-informed practice through their advocacy project, in which they use research to inform their consultation with a campus partner. Interns are also expected to integrate current research into their clinical work, supervision of psychology externs, outreach programming, and all presentations.

Statement on Service to a Diverse Public

As members of the Counseling and Psychological Services (CAPS) staff, we consistently strive to integrate our multicultural commitment into the everyday functioning and structure of our agency and training program. We have a great appreciation for the dignity and worth of each person we encounter. In our work, we acknowledge and celebrate the diversity of the students with whom we work. We also advocate a philosophy of acceptance, compassion, and support for those individuals whom we serve and provide an emotionally safe and respectful environment for all clients. Thus, we have adopted APA’s documents “Preparing Professional Psychologists to Serve a Diverse Public: A Core Requirement in Doctoral Education and Training” and “Professional Psychologist Competencies to Serve a Diverse Public“, which were developed by the Education Directorate of the American Psychological Association. The main goal of these documents is to assist training programs in addressing conflicts between trainees’ worldviews, beliefs, religious values, and professional psychology’s commitment to offering culturally responsive psychological services to all members of the public, especially to those from marginalized groups. We take a developmental and supportive approach to the integration of this value. While we respect the right of trainees to maintain their personal belief systems, we expect that trainees will work to develop competencies to work effectively and ethically with diverse populations regardless of their personal beliefs. If concerns arise, we will actively work with trainees to address them to ensure the culturally informed care of the diverse student population at this university.

Statement on Trainee Self-Disclosure

Counseling and Psychological Services (CAPS) chooses to adhere to Standard 7.04 of the APA Ethical Principles of Psychologists and Code of Conduct (2002) by identifying our expectations of trainees with respect to self-disclosure of personal information during training. We do not require trainees to self-disclose specific personal information as a matter of course. However, our training model is one that values both personal and professional development. We believe that becoming a culturally-informed and ethical psychologist often involves exploration of those experiences that have shaped our worldview. In all supervisory and learning services, counseling center staff seek to create an environment for trainees to engage willingly in the process of self-examination in the service of their training and in the service of their clients. This process may involve trainee self-disclosure of personal information as it relates to the trainee’s clinical work and/or professional development. Thus, trainees at the counseling center can expect to engage in some degree of self-exploration in the context of supervisory relationships as a means of furthering their professional development. As noted in the Ethical Principles, we may require self-disclosure of personal information if the information is necessary to evaluate or obtain assistance for trainees whose personal problems could reasonably be judged to be preventing them from performing their training- or professionally related activities in a competent manner or posing a threat to the students or others (APA, 2002).

For additional information about the training program and the associated policies and procedures, we invite you to review the Training Manual associated with the current training year. The following staff members are currently available to serve as individual supervisors for interns (organized alphabetically by last name): Drs. Diana Davis, Phil Eiseman, Mandi Quay, and Kevin Tabb. See here for additional information about their approach to clinical work and professional interests.

For the 2023-2024 training year, clinical services will be provided via a hybrid model of in-person and telemental health services. Interns will have the opportunity to utilize a hybrid work schedule, including working from the office and teleworking from a confidential location in Virginia for a designated number of days, consistent with operations for full-time clinical staff. All supervision will be held in person with the exception of circumstances that align with the center’s telesupervision policy. Interns will be provided with the required technology and are asked to have a confidential location in Virginia from which they can provide services if teleworking. It is possible this set of procedures will shift during the training year in response to center and university operations.