CAPS is one of three service branches housed in Redfern Heath Center. The other two are Medical Services and Health Education. Redfern Health Center is accredited by the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Health Care Organizations. CAPS is the University's only facility for personal counseling, psychological testing, outreach and consultation. It provides direct services to students and to spouses or partners of students in conjoint therapy. CAPS operates from a brief-therapy model that allows students ten hours of individual counseling per semester after the initial interview. Group and conjoint counseling are not time-limited. For individual counseling sessions beyond the ten-session limit and for most testing services, CAPS charges modest fees.

Staff members provide a variety of services to a diverse student population that range from individual psychotherapy to assessing students for learning disorders. Presenting problems range from mild personal difficulties to acute psychiatric conditions and long-term dysfunctions. CAPS maintains a 24-hour on-call service and staff members serve weeklong rotations.

Services available to students include individual counseling; group counseling; couples counseling; and personality, learning disorder, and ADHD assessment. The staff holds regular case conferences to consult on cases that may need more extensive treatment and to make recommendations concerning referrals to community resources. Groups vary in form and content from semester to semester, but are usually centered on themes such as eating disorders, survivors of sexual abuse, relationship issues, family of origin issues, and depression.

Referrals to other agencies are made on a case by case basis. Referrals flow to and from Redfern Health Center's Medical Services regularly. Redfern physicians and CAPS staff members routinely consult with each other regarding such issues as medication management and continuity of care. Staff members often assist in Health Education peer health educator training and in the programs Health Education sponsors.

As a part of the developmental and preventative emphasis of the center, the staff is committed to providing consultation services and outreach to the campus community. Recent and continuing consultation sites include the School of Engineering, the Honors College, the Student Athlete Enrichment Program, the Police Department, the School of Agriculture, the Language Department, and Campus Housing.

The Internship

Philosophy of Training

The pre-doctoral internship year is the culmination of a formal education process through which trainees learn to apply the breadth of their psychological knowledge to their professional roles. The internship year at CAPS is designed to promote the development process in which interns move from the role of student to that of colleague. Interns are encouraged to take an active role in designing their training to meet their professional goals, interests, and needs.

Interns receive training and supervision while participating in a broad range of activities that occur in university counseling centers. The center offers training experiences designed to help interns further develop their clinical skills, ethical decision making abilities, and professional identity in order for them to function as generalists in applied settings. Pursuant to those goals, interns are trained and supervised in providing clinical services, consultation, and community outreach as well as teaching and working within a larger organizational system.

Recognizing that interns begin the internship program with unique interests and abilities, an effort is made to individualize the training program to meet their specific goals. During the initial weeks of the internship year, the interns become aware of the services CAPS provides and the role in which they play in providing these services. The intern, the Coordinator of Training and supervisors identify the training needs and goals of the interns.

While the majority of training occurs in the context of supervision and service delivery, interns also participate in small group discussions, seminars, and case conferences to complement their training and prepare them for clinical work in the field. The training staff believes that personal development and maturity are cornerstones of professional competence and identity. Every effort is made to provide a supportive environment that models and attends to personal growth.

Clinical Service Training Activities

• Individual/Couples Counseling and Psychotherapy. Interns not only gain experience in varying problems dimensions but also in racial, cultural, gender, sexual preference, and economic status dimensions. Interns maintain a caseload of 14 to 17 individual and couples clients (less while on external rotation).
  
• Group Counseling. Interns co-facilitate one or more counseling groups each semester. An intern and a senior staff member co-lead the group. The senior staff member provides supervision. Group offerings vary from semester to semester, and groups vary from general process groups to specialized groups for students with eating disorders, depression, and the like.
  
• Outreach Programming and Consultation. Outreach programming aims at providing preventive or early intervention to students. Initial outreach presentations are done with a senior staff member and later are conducted alone. Interns average about 9 hours of outreach presentations during the year.
  
• Crisis Intervention. CAPS provides 24-hour on-call emergency service. Staff members, including interns, are responsible for providing a Triage service to students during regular office hours. Each staff member is responsible for a portion of the week in which they meet with students on an on-call basis. CAPS also has a staff member available after hours to take emergency calls from students, faculty, or parents. Interns are included in this on-call experience in the spring and summer semesters, after they have had the experience with Triage in the fall.
  
• Crisis Debriefing. From time to time a traumatic incident on campus requires CAPS staff members to conduct debriefings for groups of students, faculty, and/or other university employees involved. Interns can participate with senior staff members leading the debriefings.
  
• Psychological Testing. CAPS conducts psychological evaluations with an emphasis on learning disorders and ADHD. Interns administer a variety of psychological instruments, evaluate test data, and produce no less than three (3) written reports during the year.
  

Core Training Activities

• Individual Supervision. Each intern will be assigned up to two individual supervisors per semester, a primary supervisor with whom the intern meets two hours per week and a secondary supervisor with whom the intern spends one hour per week. Interns are assigned two or three different primary supervisors during the year. Supervisory assignments are based on intern requests and training staff assessment of intern need.
  
• Supervision of Group Work. The senior staff member, with whom the intern co-facilitates the group, provides supervision of this counseling experience.
  
• Supervision of Psychological Testing. The primary supervisor and the coordinator of testing provide supervision of administration, evaluation of the data, and report writing.
  
• Case Conference. Interns participate in the Service's weekly case conferences. Interns and senior staff present cases on a rotating basis. Discussion centers on case conceptualization, diagnostic and treatment concerns.
  
• Intern Support. The interns are scheduled time to get together for mutual support and sharing for one hour every other week. Interns have significant input into how this time will be spent. The structure may be informal or formal depending on intern interest or need.
  
• Orientation. The interns spend the first two weeks of the internship learning the policies and procedures of CAPS and Redfern Health Center. The interns will also participate in activities designed to assist them in becoming familiar with the university at large. A variety of workshops and presentations are included in the orientation.
  
• Training Seminar. Senior staff members present seminars on professional and clinical issues for two hours each week. The seminars combine didactic and experiential learning and focus on current professional issues. Examples of seminar topics include: empirically supported treatments for different disorders, legal and ethical issues in counseling, psychopharmacology, multi-cultural issues in counseling, and dealing with grief issues. It should also be noted that the staff views self exploration and personal growth as part of the holistic learning process that continues throughout our professional career.
  
• Administration. Interns participate in staff meetings, committees and various staff retreats throughout the year. CAPS provides time for these and other administrative responsibilities.

Specialized Training Opportunities

The training opportunities supplement intern's core training activities.

• Research Emphasis (one semester or full year). Interns may spend 2-3 hours a week on research projects (less if on external rotation). Interns can use this time for personal research and dissertation needs, and may also participate in CAPS' ongoing research projects. In 2002 CAPS is involved in a criterion validity and test-retest reliability study of a new eating disorders diagnostic scale. Supervisor: TBA.
• Inpatient Emphasis (one semester). The internship has arrangements with a private psychiatric hospital (Marshall I. Pickens Hospital) for interns who want to gain experience assessing and treating inpatient populations. Supervisor: TBA.

Evaluation and Feedback

• Evaluation of Interns. Supervisors evaluate their interns' progress formally at the end of each semester. Supervisors assess current strengths and weaknesses and evaluations are used to focus the next semester's supervision. The Coordinator of Training gives each intern a complete description of the evaluation procedures at the beginning of the year. Less formal evaluations are scheduled mid-semester in the fall and spring. At the end of each semester, a summary of the final evaluation is sent to the intern's graduate program documenting the intern's training activities and progress.
  
• Evaluation of Supervisors and Training Program. Interns will be afforded the opportunity to evaluate their supervisory experience and the training program twice during the internship year. This information will be used to make agreed upon adjustments in the methods of supervision and training to better meet intern needs.

Internship Core Faculty

While all of CAPS' staff plays a role in the internship, primary supervision and training is provided by CAPS' psychologists:

• Raquel Contreras, PhD became CAPS Director in July 2002 after a competitive national search. Prior to joining CAPS, she was the Director of Psychological Services at the International Pain Institute-Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center. She has also served as associate director and Coordinator of Training at the Texas Tech University Counseling Center. As a site visitor for the American Psychological Association's Office of Program Consultation and Accreditation, she has conducted numerous accreditation reviews. Her professional interests include administration, multicultural competencies, training, and supervision.
  
• George Atkinson, PhD is a staff psychologist and a licensed psychologist. He arrived in Clemson after completing his internship with the Student Counseling Service at Texas A & M University. He finished his doctoral work in counseling psychology at The University of Memphis. His professional interests range from the use of hypnotherapy repetitive patterns, enhancing performance, and relationship issues to testing for learning disorders, and assessing for adult ADHD. Dr. Atkinson recently ended a five-year term on the SC Board of Examiners in Psychology. At CAPS, he serves as Assistant Director and Coordinator of Testing and Evaluation.
  
• Harold Stevens, PsyD is a staff psychologist, a licensed psychologist and the Coordinator of Training at CAPS. He arrived at Clemson in 2003 after working at Texas Tech for 10 years. He served as a staff psychologist and assistant director there. His professional interests are in multicultural issues, supervision and the process of therapy.
  
• Laura Haley Creel, PhD is a staff psychologist, a licensed psychologist and the Coordinator of Consultation and Outreach at CAPS. She earned her doctorate in Counseling Psychology from Auburn University in 2006. She arrived at Clemson in the fall of 2006 after completing her pre-doctoral internship and doing postdoctoral work at the University of Oregon Counseling and Testing Center. Dr. Creel works from a psychodynamic and existential theoretical orientation, and was trained as a generalist. Her professional interests include eating disorders, physical and sexual trauma, relationships, stress management, personality disorders, psychoeducation for college students, and training/supervision.
• Jenni Harshbarger, PhD is a staff psychologist, a licensed psychologist and the Coordinator of Eating Disorder Services at CAPS. She earned her doctorate in Clinical Psychology from Wichita State University in 2005, and completed her predoctoral internship and postdoctoral fellowship at the Counseling and Testing Center at Wichita State University. Dr. Harshbarger works from a cognitive behavioral and interpersonal orientation. While trained as a generalist, she has developed subspecialties in the treatment of eating disorders and psychological assessment.
  

Current Interns

Class of 2008-2009

• Davina Bedsole, Florida Institute of Technology
  
• Kimberley Benton, Argosy University/Atlanta
  
• Jeffrey Volkmann, George Mason University

Internship Dates and Benefits

• The full-time internship begins August 1st and ends July 31st.
  
• The stipend is $17,000 without employee benefits.
  
• Interns are allowed 18 days of combined leave (vacation, continuing education, job interview, and sick leave) along with the official university holidays.

Accreditation Status

Counseling and Psychological Services is a member of the Association of Psychology Postdoctoral and Internship Centers (APPIC) and the Association of Counseling Center Training Agents (ACCTA). The psychology internship program was accredited by the American Psychological Association effective September 2004.

Internship Selection Process and Applications

• The prospective intern should be a doctoral candidate in counseling or clinical psychology with course work, practica (a minimum 600 hours), and qualifying examinations completed.
• Completion of dissertation or approval of dissertation proposal is preferred.

To apply, submit the following:

1. APPIC Application for Psychology Internship (APPI)
   
2. Current Vita
   
3. Unofficial copies of doctoral transcript
   
4. Unofficial copy of Verification of Internship and Readiness Form
   
5. Three letters of recommendation
   
6. If the applicant is selected, official copies of the above documents as well as original letters of recommendation will be required.
   
7. If the applicant is selected, a background check is conducted prior to employment.

For additional information contact:
Harold Stevens, PsyD
Coordinator

(864) 656-5804 (direct line / voice mail)
(864) 656-0760 (fax)