Health Service Psychology Internship

Notice Regarding APPIC Match Participation for 2027–2028

We would like to inform prospective applicants that our site will not be participating in the APPIC Match for the 2027–2028 internship year. After thoughtful consideration, we made the decision to pause the internship program for this upcoming recruitment cycle.

We have an ongoing commitment to strengthening and enhancing our internship program. During this time, we will conduct a comprehensive assessment of key components—including our training curriculum, supervision model, and the overall intern learning experiences. We will also focus on program development to ensure a high-quality training experience and supportive environment for future interns.

We sincerely apologize for any inconvenience this may cause and appreciate your interest in our program. If you have any questions, please feel free to contact Megan Turner-Cabrera, Psy.D. at megan.turner@sjsu.edu.

Thank you for your understanding and for your continued interest in our internship program.

Program Overview

\*Our center has been operating on a hybrid model (going to the office a few days) while conducting in-person counseling/supervision/training as well as tele-counseling/supervision/training. This is subject to change at any time.

The major goal of the SJSU CAPS’ Training Program is to provide high quality learning experiences to postdoctoral residents and psychology interns in counseling and clinical psychology in preparation for a career in mental health (focused on interns in this section). To help attain this goal, the counseling faculty has a strong commitment to supervise, teach, and mentor our interns. Our training is guided by a Practitioner-Scholar model in which we train clinicians to be informed of theory and research in the science of Psychology.

Our supervisors represent a broad base of theoretical backgrounds, thus interns are exposed to various models. We emphasize short-term treatment approaches that meet the needs of a diverse college and graduate student body. We also strongly acknowledge that we live in a diverse world with continued ongoing diversity-related issues and injustices. We thus believe in the utmost importance of being dedicated to multicultural awareness and humility. We believe in the need to engage in this process on a daily basis by being aware of our multiple social identities and interactions of those with others, acknowledging our biases, being aware of societal contexts that impact us on a constant basis, and advocating for various marginalized populations. Thus these beliefs and values are embedded into our training program and multiple elements described below.

We strive to provide interns with challenging and developmentally appropriate training experiences. We accomplish this by emphasizing training that is sequential, cumulative, and graded in complexity. We provide didactic trainings, experiential learning (direct service), mentorship, and role modeling from various staff members. We encourage self-examination and awareness of the impact of self on others.

We are proud members of the Association of Counseling Center Training Agencies (ACCTA) – a national organization for training programs within university counseling centers and the Association of Psychology Postdoctoral and Internship Centers (APPIC). Our internship has also been accredited by the American Psychological Association (APA) since 2012 and re-accredited for 10 years in 2019.

CAPS abides by the APA Ethical Principles of Psychologists and Code of Conduct 2017 (https://www.apa.org/ethics/code). Our internship and postdoctoral programs meet the California state licensure requirements and provides broad training covering all the major areas of knowledge and skills expected of a psychologist in a university counseling center setting (Standard 7.01), provides an accurate description of the training program, goals and objectives, stipends, benefits and exit criteria (Standard 7.02), provides training as described in the program materials (Standard 7.03), does not require interns and postdoctoral residents to disclose or discuss personal information except as it is related to their developing skills and professional effectiveness (Standard 7.04), does not mandate outside therapy experiences (Standard 7.05), provides evaluations of interns and postdoctoral residents in a timely manner (Standard 7.06), and prohibits sexual relationships between interns, postdoctoral residents and staff members (Standard 7.07).

Aim of Training

To train entry-level psychologists whose professionalism includes self-awareness, culturally-responsive practice, and communication/interpersonal skills, for ethical and effective practice in the field of Health Service Psychology.

Trainee Training Competencies

We have outlined the following training competencies and elements:

Competency A: Research

Competency B: Ethical and Legal Standards

Competency C: Individual and Cultural Diversity

Competency D: Professional Values and Attitudes

Competency E: Communication and Interpersonal Skills

Competency F: Assessment

Competency G: Intervention

Competency H: Supervision

Information about SJSU CAPS Psychology Internship: A Fireside Chat with SJSU CAPS Supervisors (Fall 2024)

This video contains information about the SJSU CAPS Psychology Internship program shared by our Clinical Supervisors from Fall 2024. Hosted by the Intern Training Coordinator, our CAPS supervisors address common questions asked by applicants over the years in a panel format. This video was created to help those interested in our program to learn more about our CAPS atmosphere and the internship year.

Agency Description

San José State University CAPS is a department of the Student Wellness Center within the Division of Student Affairs at San José State University. CAPS offers services designed to help San José State's diverse student body of 30,000 identify and accomplish their academic and career goals, enhance personal development, meet life's challenges, and improve interpersonal relationships. CAPS is established as a comprehensive counseling center offering core clinical services, developmental and life skills interventions, consultations, and outreach to our diverse student population. Short-term counseling and psychotherapy are the primary means of direct service delivery.

Agency Objective

CAPS provides quality culturally-responsive services to students so they can achieve their goals of becoming successful graduates of San José State University, both academically and socially. To fulfill this objective, we look at the whole student based on their sociocultural background and provide guidance and tools to become productive and well-rounded. To do that, professionally trained psychologists, social workers, and counselors are available for students on an individual or group basis for counseling on a myriad of psychological and academic issues. In addition, we provide services such as outreach presentations for students, student groups, staff/faculty, and staff consultations on issues of student mental health and campus climate; and professional training, teaching, and supervision for future mental health personnel, consistent with the educational mission of the university.

Population Served

CAPS provides services for all enrolled students of San José State University. The student population of SJSU is a highly diverse group. For example, there is no one clear majority group (more than 50%) in terms of ethnicity on the campus and ages range from late teens to many students in their fifties. In addition, there is diversity around ability/disability, religion, sexual orientation, gender identity, social class, nationality, and more.

Theoretical Orientation

CAPS' staff utilize a variety of theoretical positions including psychodynamic, cognitive-behavioral, ACT, DBT, AEDP, emotion-focused, feminist, multicultural, gestalt, humanistic, and systems perspectives. Generally, an integrated approach to counseling and psychotherapy is shared by the staff.

Diversity and Social Justice Training

Training in multiculturally oriented therapy and counseling is integrated into all training activities. As noted, SJSU CAPS serves a highly diverse population. Psychology interns participate in a weekly Diversity Discussion Group/Seminar (Spring) and weekly Social Justice and Outreach Training Seminars (Fall) where social justice and outreach issues are integrated and discussed in depth. Psychology interns also provide various outreach and workshops and are guided to provide these in a culturally sensitive manner to diverse populations. Lastly, CAPS hosts an annual conference: Multicultural Training Day. Trainees and Training Directors from university counseling centers in the Bay Area are invited to attend and share in a day of multicultural learning and dialogue (e.g., Topics include addressing racial trauma, working with LGBTQ populations, working with undocumented students etc).

Components of the Clinical Psychology Internship Training Program

There are four major component areas of the Training Program. These areas are Multiculturalism/Cultural Humility, Training, Direct Service, and Indirect Service. In addition, there may be Other Training Opportunities available throughout the training year.

Multiculturalism/Cultural Humility:

At CAPS we value multiculturalism, cultural humility, and social justice and work to actively engage in our own self-reflection processes, acquire culture-specific knowledge, and provide culturally sensitive services to our campus population. Thus, when providing individual, couples, crisis and group counseling, attending supervision, and providing consultation and outreach programming to attending training seminar presentations, psychology interns and post doctoral residents will be guided to think of the recipient of services as a whole embedded in layers of systems and cultural contexts, learn how to conceptualize and explore these layers and various social identities with clients, and reflect on their own cultural backgrounds and identities as counselors, psychologists-in-training, and professionals-to-be. For instance, psychology interns partake in a Social Justice and Outreach Seminar to further discuss how to be social justice advocates. Post-doctoral residents conduct a multicultural post-doctoral project to further engage as social justice advocates at SJSU. CAPS also hosts an annual one-day Multicultural Training Day conference, that all interns and postdoctoral residents attend and that focuses on providing diversity training for trainees at SJSU and nearby bay area university counseling centers.

Training

Seminars

Didactic Training Seminar

The Training Seminar meets for 2hrs (mostly every other week in the Fall and weekly in Winter/Spring/Summer) and is coordinated by a CAPS staff clinician in consultation with the Intern Training Coordinator. The weekly seminar encompasses 3 large components: clinical topics, psychological testing topics, and professional development topics. First, various clinical topics are presented and discussed by a variety of presenters at CAPS and outside presenters. Common training topics include: how to work with trauma survivors, cultural double-bind, working with specific cultural populations (e.g., ethnic groups, international students, LGBTQ populations), conducting various modes of therapy, learning how to do supervision and more. Second, the seminar includes training on psychological assessment (e.g., CCAPS, CAMS, trauma assessment) in which interns will be trained on (in Fall) and asked to use with a client and report on (in Spring). This is a small component of the training experience. Furthermore, the seminar will also include training coordinated by a licensed psychologist on professional development topics (e.g., applying for next training positions, preparation for licensure in psychology, job interviews) throughout the year. As part of the professional development experience, interns also receive a summer module on Conducting Supervision, and practice mock peer supervision experiences that they will be evaluated on before internship ends.

Diversity Discussion Group/Seminar

This group/seminar is an opportunity for trainees to develop their awareness and knowledge in diversity through discussion and is led by counselor faculty. It is conducted for about 1 hour every week in the Fall or Spring Semester. Our agency believes that self-awareness is vital to the development of a competent practitioner. Thus, trainees will be invited to deeply examine their own cultural identities and assumptions, discuss diversity issues that arise in the everyday setting and larger society, and reflect on how these impact interpersonal and relational dynamics in providing therapy and healing, and within interpersonal and systemic dynamics. The purpose of this is to help trainees advance their multicultural awareness and cultural humility in order to improve mental health for their clients and the community. Although this group serves clinical work, it is not supervision or about specific cases.

Social Justice and Outreach Seminar

The Social Justice and Outreach Seminar occurs weekly during the Fall semester and is led by a licensed psychologist. Interns will discuss the role of psychologists in addressing social justice issues that may prevent or alleviate mental health struggles; explore the relationship between social justice and the development of outreach services and programs; and may help in developing specialization areas in which they focus their outreach and group efforts (e.g., LGBTQ students, racial/ethnic minority students, international students, first generation college students). It is the Training Committee’s philosophy that including a diverse group of individuals (including diversity in training levels) enriches the discussion in this seminar and thus psychology interns and postdoctoral residents are both included in this seminar (some years post-doctoral residents are not included if they were interns in previous years and took this seminar-in this case the post-doctoral residents come to present on their plans for their multicultural postdoc project during one of the seminar times). Information regarding performance in this seminar may be provided to the individual supervisor for inclusion in the semester evaluation process.

Supervision/Case Consultation

Individual (1:1) Supervision

CAPS meets or exceeds the supervision requirement in the CA Board of Psychology’s Supervised Professional Experience (SPE) regulation. Each intern/postdoctoral resident will be provided with supervision for at least 10% of the total time worked each week.

At least one hour per week of individual face-to-face supervision is provided each week. This is in accordance with APA and the CA Board of Psychology g