The Sunset Terrace Family Health Center at NYU Langone Clinical Psychology Internship offers interns comprehensive clinical training based on their professional interests and experience.

Psychology Internship Training Site

As an intern, your clinical training primarily occurs at the Sunset Terrace Family Health Center at NYU Langone. This site includes an ambulatory behavioral health program affiliated with the Family Health Centers at NYU Langone network of Federally Qualified Health Centers.

The Behavioral Health Program—Family Health Centers at NYU Langone consists of a team of clinical and master social workers, licensed mental health counselors, psychiatrists, psychiatric nurse practitioners, and licensed psychologists. Together, they serve about 4,000 unique pediatric, adult, and geriatric patients. Comprehensive services include biopsychosocial assessment, individual psychotherapy, group psychotherapy, family and couples therapy, psychiatric evaluation and medication management, psychological testing, and wellness support.

The clinic is in southwest Brooklyn’s Sunset Park, one of the most diverse communities in New York City. As part of the Family Health Centers at NYU Langone network, the Behavioral Health Program has access to resources such as its community-based social service programs, Medicaid Health Home and case management services, school health programs, and integrated primary and behavioral healthcare.

Clinical Training Curriculum

Our clinical training curriculum includes individual and group supervision of psychotherapy cases, testing supervision for psychological assessments, and participation in multidisciplinary clinical team meetings. As an intern, you attend staff training sessions and administrative meetings, which provide an overview of operational, administrative, and systemic issues that impact a community mental health center. Training time commitments are as follows:

• two hours per week of individual supervision of psychotherapy cases
• one hour per week of group supervision of psychotherapy cases
• one hour per week of testing supervision for psychological assessments
• two to three hours per month of multidisciplinary team meetings
• two hours per month of staff meetings and trainings
• two hours per month of grand rounds presentations, one hour each in psychology and psychiatry

You also attend four hours of didactic seminars to complement clinical training and may participate in a research rotation in cooperation with the Department of Psychiatry on the Manhattan campus.

Psychological Testing

Recognizing that psychological testing and integrated report writing is an essential part of your training experience, you are provided with one hour of individual supervision, weekly, in psychological testing. The testing supervisor is a fully licensed, doctoral-level psychologist who oversees the selection, administration, scoring, and interpretation of the test instruments, as well as the writing of an integrated psychological report, and the provision of feedback to the referral source and examinee.

Training you to select appropriate test instruments based on the referral question is an initial task of the testing supervisor. Instruments used for testing may include cognitive instruments such as the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale, Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children, Wechsler Memory Scale, and projective instruments such as the Rorschach inkblot test, the Thematic Apperception Test, the Children’s Apperception Test, projective drawings, and incomplete sentences.

Other tests include objective personality measures such as the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory and measures of adaptive functioning such as the Vineland Adaptive Behavior Scales. Our site also uses a variety of pencil and paper measures, scales, and questionnaires suitable for diverse clinical presentations.

Psychological testing and the associated writing of an integrated report is a unique skill set that is developed over time with practice and supervision. Each intern is expected to complete a minimum of five psychological test batteries, each with an accompanying fully integrated report, and the provision of feedback to the examinee and the referral source.