CLINICAL PSYCHOLOGY INTERNSHIP PROGRAM Brochure for ...

THE GOUVERNEUR HEALTHCARE SERVICES
CLINICAL PSYCHOLOGY INTERNSHIP TRAINING PROGRAM
AN APA-ACCREDITED PROGRAM
MEMBER of NEW YORK CITY HEALTH & HOSPITALS CORPORATION
Gouverneur Healthcare Services, in professional affiliation with New York University School of
Medicine, provides a major portion of the outpatient health services for the Lower Manhattan area of
New York City. Lower Manhattan has been the center of successive waves of immigration and is
characterized by a broad diversity of ethnic, linguistic, and racial groups. It includes large numbers of
non-English speaking immigrants of Latino/a, Chinese, Italian, African-Caribbean origin as well as
African-Americans and a long-standing Jewish community. The broad diversity of this patient
population challenges our Department of Behavioral Health to provide much needed mental health
services in a culturally relevant and sensitive fashion. The stresses of acculturation, poverty, and
discrimination place our patient population at high risk for physical illness and psychological
disturbance. The Gouverneur catchment area has been officially designated as a poverty area by the
Office of Economic Opportunity and has the second highest incidence of state psychiatric
hospitalizations in New York City. Despite the continued influx of new immigrant groups and areas of
gentrification, there is stability to the area, which attracts a largely family-oriented population, which
uses the services of the hospital for its many health care needs.
The Department of Behavioral Health saw a significant expansion of its clinical programs beginning in
the early 1980's. Gouverneur’s tradition of outreach and mobile crisis intervention to the Lower East
Side community continues and expanded to meet the needs of specific patient populations, such as
young adults with severe and persistent mental illnesses and the isolated impaired elderly. Additionally,
Gouverneur has implemented the Asian Bicultural Clinic, a unique program geared to meeting the
mental health needs of the multilingual Chinese community. This program brings together several
components to provide culturally-centered care by interdisciplinary multilingual and bicultural staff.
In addition to implementing innovative clinical services, the psychology staff is encouraged to pursue
their own training as mental health professionals and to actively participate in the clinical training of all
disciplines. On-going training is offered to psychology interns and externs, social work interns, mental
health counselors and nurse practitioners.
The Psychology Service functions within the Department of Behavioral Health at Gouverneur
Healthcare Services. The staff, at present, is comprised of nine full-time, and two part-time
psychologists. Specialties of the staff include various forms of psychodynamic psychotherapy, family
systems therapy, dialectical behavior therapy, stress and pain management, cognitive-behavioral
therapy, inpatient and outpatient group psychotherapy, and child psychotherapy. Psychologists are
assigned to many of the units within the Department, including the Adult Service, the Women’s
Comprehensive Health Program (WP), the Child and Adolescent Service (C&A), the Young Adult
Outreach Team (YAOT), the Center for Older Adults and their Families (CFOA), and the Asian
Bicultural Clinic (ABC). Staff members perform a variety of functions, including conducting intakes,
psychotherapy, psychodiagnostic evaluations, teaching seminars, and providing supervision. A primary
component of the Psychology Service is the Clinical Psychology Internship Training Program, which is
committed to training clinical psychology interns as part of the requirements for their doctoral degrees.
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