gouverneur healthcare services - New York State Psychological ...

GOVERNEUR HEALTHCARE SERVICES
EXTERNSHIP TRAINING PROGRAM IN CLINICAL PSYCHOLOGY
Gouverneur Healthcare Services, in professional affiliation with the New York University
School of Medicine (NYUSOM) and Bellevue Hospital Center (BHC), provides a major portion
of the outpatient mental health services for the Lower Manhattan (LM) catchment area of New
York City. The LM catchment area is characterized by a broad diversity of ethnic, linguistic and
racial groups. It includes large numbers of non-English speaking immigrants of Hispanic,
Chinese, Italian and Jewish backgrounds. The broad diversity of our patient population
challenges our Department of Behavioral Health (BH) 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. Further, the LM catchment area has been officially designated as a poverty area by
the Office of Economic Opportunity, and has the second highest incidence of state
hospitalizations in New York City. Despite the influx of new immigrant groups, as well as
efforts towards gentrification, there is a sense of stability to the area, which attracts a familyoriented
population who use the services of the hospital for its many health care needs.
The Department of Behavioral Health (BH) has seen a significant expansion of its clinical
programs beginning in the early 1980s. With a tradition of outreach and mobile crisis
intervention to the Lower East Side community, the Department has expanded the crisis outreach
team model of intervention. It includes the development of teams to meet the needs of specific
patient populations, such as the young adult chronic patient, the psychologically impaired
homeless, and the isolated impaired elderly. Additionally, the Department of BH has
implemented a unique program geared to meeting the mental health needs of the Asian
community. This program, the Asian Bicultural Clinic (ABC), brings together several clinical
components to provide culturally sensitive and competent care through multidisciplinary
bilingual 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. Ongoing training is offered to psychology interns, psychology externs,
social work interns and nurse practitioner students, both through (i) didactic seminars on a range
of clinical topics, (ii) monthly grand rounds, during which both in-house staff and experts in
clinical areas from the general professional community are invited to present on various relevant
clinical topics, and (iii) twice monthly departmental case conferences, during which staff
psychologists, social workers and trainees, as well as psychiatrists, present particularly
challenging cases for discussion and recommendations for treatment going forward.
The Psychology Service functions within the Department of BH at Gouverneur. The staff, at
present, is comprised of 13 full-time and 2 part-time psychologists. Specialties of the staff
include psychodynamic psychotherapy, interpersonal psychoanalysis, Dialectical Behavioral
therapy, stress and pain management, hypnosis, focusing oriented psychotherapy, cognitivebehavioral
therapy, child / adolescent psychotherapy, family therapy, group therapy, integrated
psychotherapy, crisis intervention, treatment of trauma, psychological, psycho-educational, and
neuropsychological testing and assessment, and dementia screenings.
Psychologists are assigned to many of the units within the department, including the Adult
Service, Walk-In Clinic, Child and Adolescent Service (C&A), Young Adult Outreach Team