Massachusetts General Hospital/Harvard Medical School Internship in Clinical Psychology for 2027-2028

Electives

Interns choose from the following electives

Adult Clinical Psychology Elective Track

In recent years, graduate programs have deemphasized generalist training. Applicants arrive at internship sites with a varied and specific range of experiences, strengths, and backgrounds. Because of this, it is not expected that applicants will have previous experiences with all internship rotations offered on the adult track. However, it is expected that intern applicants will have at least basic competencies in more than one area. An ideal candidate would be someone who:

• has the desire to strengthen their therapeutic identity (conceptualization & technique) and work from a generalist approach.
• is open to integrating other theoretical perspectives and techniques into their clinical work.
• values working/treating patients from a holistic perspective (e.g., personality and interpersonal factors as well as cultural background)
• Is willing to learn and incorporate multiple empirically supported treatment interventions to meet patient needs (e.g., DBT, psychodynamic psychotherapy, CBT, ACT, etc.).
• Is adaptable and flexible in delivering interventions and treatments that are experience-near to the patient’s functioning and readiness.
• Values the importance of the therapeutic relationship as a component of the psychotherapy process.
• Is interested in deepening their psychological evaluation skills via multi-method clinical assessment.
• Is motivated throughout the internship year to work with varying levels of acuity and specialties across inpatient and outpatient settings.
• Is collaborative and values being part of a team.

Rotations

• Outpatient individual psychotherapy (all year): 6 integrative psychotherapy cases (2 hours of supervision), 2-3 CBT cases (1 hour of supervision).
• Outpatient Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) group: standard DBT group (6 months) & advanced practice DBT group (6 months).
• Psychological Assessment: Trainees conduct comprehensive psychological evaluations from a multi-method approach. Supervision is provided throughout the evaluation process and afterwards to assist with scoring, interpretation, and report writing (6 months).
• Triage Services: Outpatient Treatment Evaluation Service (OTES; 4 months) & Psychiatry Urgent Care Clinic (UCC; 4 months).

For these rotations, interns will conduct evaluations to determine what type of psychotherapy would be most appropriate for individual patients (OTES) as well as conduct psychiatric/clinical evaluations (based on referral question[s]) and carry at least one short-term therapy case focused on stabilization (UCC).

• Inpatient Psychiatry rotation (Blake 11; 1 x per week for 4 hours x 6 months): Consists of interns attending patient rounds, seeing patients individually, & co-leading groups.

Didactics

• CBT seminar: 1-hour weekly x 6 months
• Core Training Seminar (Proseminar): 1-hour weekly x 12 months
• Inpatient Psychiatry (Blake 11) Seminar: 1-hour weekly x 6 months
• Psychological Assessment Seminar: 1-hour 30 minutes weekly x 9 months
• Integrative Psychotherapy seminar: 1-hour weekly x 6 months

Meetings

• DBT consultation team: 1 hour 45 minutes weekly x 6 months
• Psychological Evaluation and Research Lab (PEaRL) staff meeting: 1-hour weekly x all year

Supervision

Supervisors in the adult track value teaching and training. Learning is facilitated through teaching, observing, co-treatment, and processing. Supervisors provide an instructional scaffolding framework across many of the rotations offered. This scaffolding framework is tailored, hands on, and collaborative. Supervisors aim to foster growth and empower applicants to develop their confidence and competence as a clinician as well as aid them in developing their therapeutic identity/approach.

Related Links

• Psychological Evaluation and Research Laboratory (PEaRL)
• Society for Personality Assessment (SPA)
• Medical psychiatric inpatient unit (Blake 11)

Behavioral Medicine Elective Track

The Behavioral Medicine (BMED) Elective provides experiences in an academic general hospital setting encouraging academic careers in psychology as it relates to health.

While the training experiences in this elective area overlap somewhat with the cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) elective area, the clinical research interest of the candidate should be primarily in health psychology/behavioral medicine. In addition to what is included here, please see the “Professional Training” tab on the BMED homepage for additional information.

Interns in this elective will receive training designed to provide:

• Up-to-date knowledge of health psychology clinical research methods and outcomes
• Knowledge about psychosocial prevention and intervention approaches as they relate to medical illness
• A foundation of experience in formulating and implementing empirically based CBT interventions

Treatment, Assessment & Evaluation

For the outpatient experience, interns have roughly half BMED patients and half CBT patients who do not have medical comorbidity. Patients are referred to Behavioral Medicine from the various medical services at Mass General.

The BMED elective provides interns with experience evaluating and treating patients with conditions representing a spectrum of medical diagnoses. The focus of the Behavioral Medicine Program is on brief interventions designed to enhance medical and psychiatric outcomes for patients. This is designed to maintain patient flow and allow responsiveness to the medical services. Therefore, the evaluation is key in terms of setting realistic and attainable goals. To ensure that experience with a variety of medical diagnoses is achieved, interns track the number of patients seen from each disorder or service. An effort is made to create variety in each intern's caseload.

Supervision, provided in both individual and group formats, is designed to offer a variety of perspectives on the care of patients. In all cases, supervision is designed to combine perspectives based on empirical research and enhanced with clinical experience. BMED interns will learn the most up-to-date CBT approaches and will have the opportunity to specialize in health psychology interventions. Most treatment will be individual, but group training and experience are available.

BMED interns will also co-lead a dialectical behavior therapy (DBT) group and attend DBT team meetings for six months, as well as rotate through the hospital’s inpatient service.

Interns will also opt into 1-3 additional rotations (as described here) based on individual training goals.

Consultation

BMED interns provide consultations to medical patients hospitalized at Mass General on an as-needed basis.

Research

A successful applicant to the BMED elective track will have demonstrated a commitment to clinical research as evidenced by an emerging history of completed research publications and/or presentations. To make the most of the clinical research training, an incoming intern would have their dissertation either nearly complete or complete before starting the internship. One of the main training objectives of the BMED elective is to solidify the interns' background and skills necessary for a career in academic research. As part of our commitment to the scientist-practitioner model, clinical research is a regular and protected part of interns' weekly activities.

Faculty from the psychiatry and medical departments offer a wealth of research opportunities across three distinct areas of research emphasis: HIV care and prevention (including SGM health), Psycho-oncology (with the Cancer Outcomes Research and Education, [CORE]), Health Promotion and Resiliency Intervention Research Program (HPRIR). Interns should discuss their research interests with each of their supervisors and program directors and may choose to initiate independent research projects or join existing projects (where full data sets become available during the intern's training year).

Faculty

Visit the Behavioral Medicine Program to see the faculty.

Didactics

In addition to the internship core didactics, the following seminars are required:

• Behavioral Medicine Seminar (weekly)
• CBT Seminar (weekly)
• Group Supervision and Case Conferences
• Research Supervision

Supervision

• 3 hours individual supervision:
• 1 hour research-focused supervision
• 1-hour BMED, 1-hour general CBT supervision
• 1-hour BMED group supervision

Award

The Mass General/Harvard Medical School Predoctoral Internship in Clinical Psychology received the "Outstanding Training Program" Award in 2011 by the Association for Behavioral and Cognitive Therapies (ABCT).

Post-Doctoral Training Opportunities

The internship year is the first step toward specialization in a behavioral medicine/health psychology clinical research area. To provide BMED elective interns with advanced training in clinical methods and clinical research, the research teams in BMED at Mass General may offer Postdoctoral Fellowships in Clinical Research as it relates to health. Interested interns are encouraged to organize their research activities such that they can make a smooth transition to a fellowship year if positions are available.

Related Links:

• Behavioral Medicine Program
• Cognitive Behavioral Therapy

Department of Psychiatry

For 80 years, Mass General's Psychiatry Department has provided the highest quality patient care through pioneering research.   Learn more here.

Training the Next Generation of Leaders in Psychiatry

Find information on psychiatry residencies, fellowships and other continuing medical education opportunities.

Child Clinical Psychology Elective Track

The Child Clinical Psychology Elective has a long history of providing outstanding generalist training in working with children, adolescents and families through Mass General Brigham for Children with several elective opportunities for greater specialization. Child track interns gain experience in individual and family therapy, consultation, short-term interventions in an acute setting, assessment of ADHD and specific learning disabilities, and research. They participate in didactics with interns from other tracks, as well as attend seminars specific to pediatric and family work. Across all clinical experiences, there is an emphasis on providing developmentally appropriate, evidence-based services to varied populations of children and families in an academic medical center.

Outpatient Treatment

Interns in the Child Clinical Psychology Track spend most of their direct clinical services time in the Child and Adolescent Psychiatry Outpatient Clinic (CAP). This patient population is varied and includes children and families with multiple psychological, social, and medical challenges. Interns see patients and families referred by pediatricians, subspecialty medical providers and from across the Division of Child Psychiatry clinical programs (e.g., Child CBT, Pediatric Behavioral Medicine).

Typical referral problems include anxiety disorders, depression/mood disorders, ADHD and parenting difficulties. Interns obtain closely supervised experiences in individual child therapy (play therapy and integrated approaches), cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT, ACT, DBT, TF-CBT), parent guidance interventions and family therapy. There is frequent collaboration with child psychiatry fellows for treatment and case management. Intern caseloads are determined depending on their areas of interest and focus, in consultation with the track director.

Additionally, interns have the option of gaining specialized experience by choosing up to two elective rotations over the course of the year including:

• Pediatric behavioral medicine: Seeing patients referred by various pediatric medical services, including gastroenterology and endocrinology through the outpatient clinic with supervision by a pediatric psychologist
• Dialectical behavior therapy: Co-leading a weekly multifamily DBT skills group for adolescents and their caregivers or for parents of elementary age patients, attending weekly consultation team meeting, weekly supervision with group leader, and optionally providing family check-in sessions or individual DBT for group participants
• ARMS Program: Providing individual therapy to youth under 26 years of age and/ or co-leading parent groups for families of patients with substance abuse related problems, attending clinic rounds, weekly group supervision
• Transgender Health Program: Providing individual and/or family therapy to pediatric patients seen through the MGH Transgender Health Program with weekly group supervision
• Early Intervention with Young Anxious Children: Evaluating and treating children ages 3-7 years who have shy or fearful temperaments or anxiety disorders using family-based CBT, with weekly supervision

Interns typically carry a caseload of 6-8 individual patients in addition to a family therapy case with additional clinical hours determined by their elective rotations up to 12 hours of direct clinical time. Note that the availability of elective rotations may vary depending upon program schedules and patient enrollment.

Pediatric Assessment

Child interns complete a six-month rotation in pediatric assessment through the Learning and Emotional Assessment Program (LEAP). Interns will gain experience in the assessment of school-aged children and adolescents presenting with neurodevelopmental (e.g., autism spectrum disorder, learning disorders, ADHD), psychiatric (e.g., anxiety, mood disorders), and/or medical conditions (e.g., epilepsy, genetic disorders, stroke, prematurity). Interns generally complete 2-3 evaluations per month. Interns may also engage in consultation work with parents.

Pediatric Acute Psychiatry Service or Adult Inpatient Unit

All interns do a six-month, four-hour per week rotation providing intervention services in an acute setting. Child interns may choose to either: 1) provide short-term individual and family-based intervention for children and adolescents who are being evaluated in the MGH Emergency Department’s Pediatric Acute Psychiatry Service (APS) or, 2) complete their acute rotation on our medical psychiatric inpatient unit (Blake 11) attending patient rounds, seeing patients individually, and co-leading groups. While Blake is a mixed adult unit, there are often opportunities for child interns to see transitional age youth (age 18 to 26) for individual inpatient psychotherapy.

Research

Child interns have a minimum of 4 hours per week dedicated research time throughout the year to focus on activities such as participating in mentor-led research projects, publishing papers, and/or preparing grant applications for post-doctoral fellowship. There is a strong history of child interns collaborating on ongoing research projects within the department of psychiatry, within specialty areas of medicine (e.g., neurology, endocrinology, behavioral medicine), and within LEAP. Many interns secure research funding for post-doctoral fellowship.

Interns committed to a career in academic research, as reflected by a strong record of publications and/or extramural grant funding, are encouraged to seek additional mentorship to develop their research skills, including through publication opportunities and guidance on preparing F32, K-level, or foundation grant applications. Interns who benefit most from these opportunities typically have their dissertation completed or mostly completed prior to the start of their internship. Interns who are on a clear research track may work with the child track director to choose clinical rotations to allow for more time for research (up to 8 hours per week).

Example faculty research interests include:

• Modeling risk for depression and suicide in preadolescents, adolescents, and young adults, leveraging life stress, neurocognitive, epidemiological, and meta-analytic methods, social media content, EMA, and ambulatory technologies; other areas include child maltreatment, and underrepresented communities (Liu)
• Suicidal and nonsuicidal self-injury prediction and prevention in youth and young adults using novel methodologies and computational approaches (Burke)
• Early and preventative interventions for childhood anxiety (Hirshfeld-Becker)
• Digital single-session interventions for child anxiety (Abel)
• Self-directed parent interventions for reducing anxiety in young children with and without autism (Hirshfeld-Becker and Abel)
• Development and evaluation of interventions in Type 1 diabetes including a three-session preventative program for parents in the first year of a child’s diagnosis and of a CBT group focused on diabetes problem-solving for teens (O’Donnell)
• Development, evaluation, and implementation studies of mental health interventions for people with cystic fibrosis, including a CF-CBT coping skills program for teens and mind-body approaches to pain management in CF (Friedman)
• Observational research of biobehavioral mechanism underlying childhood adversity sequelae; clinical research examining trauma-informed transdiagnostic interventions to address adversity-associated health outcomes (Basu)
• Predicting changes in psychopathology using multimodal approaches (e.g., EMAs and passive sensors); developing and evaluating digital interventions in depression and substance use (Collins)
• Novel cognitive-behavioral treatments for eating disorders and neurobiological basis of eating disorders including avoidant/restrictive food intake disorder and anorexia nervosa (Eddy, Thomas)
• Multidisciplinary research examining mechanisms driving the progression of substance use and co-occurring mental health concerns in youth and the development and evaluation of innovative, school-based early interventions (Schuster)

Cognitive Behavioral Therapy Elective Track

The Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) Elective provides experiences in a clinical setting according to the scientist-practitioner model and encourages academic careers in psychology.

Interns in this elective receive intensive training designed to provide:

• Up-to-date knowledge of clinical research methods and outcomes
• Knowledge of the nature of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5) conditions and treatment interventions based on the current empirical literature
• Experience in formulating and implementing treatments based on functional analyses of maladaptive behaviors in patients with a wide range of severity, comorbidity, and clinical presentations

Treatment, Assessment & Evaluation

The CBT Elective provides interns with experience evaluating and treating patients with conditions representing a full spectrum of DSM-5 disorders. To ensure that experience with a variety of disorders and relative specialization with several disorders is achieved, interns track the number of patients seen within each diagnostic category. An effort is made to create variety in each intern's caseload. CBT interns will get exposure to some behavioral medicine cases during the internship year.

CBT interns will also co-lead a dialectical behavior therapy (DBT) group and attend DBT team meetings for six months. (In addition, interns will do a six-month, four-hour/week rotation on the Inpatient Psychiatry Service on Blake 11.)

Participation in several diagnostic programs will help ensure that, in addition to providing state-of-the-art CBT interventions, CBT interns become facile with the issues associated with pharmacologic and combined pharmacologic and cognitive-behavioral treatment. Outcome findings for pharmacotherapy, CBT and their combination are addressed in the CBT seminar. In addition, the CBT elective provides specialty training in issues of combined treatment and discontinuation of pharmacotherapy for patients with anxiety and affective disorders. Experience with and awareness of the effectiveness of CBT for different diagnostic categories helps prepare interns for interacting with insurance companies and other mental health professionals.

Consultation

CBT interns provide consultations to medical and psychiatric patients hospitalized at Mass General on an as-needed basis.

Research

Typically, successful applicants to the CBT elective have already demonstrated a commitment to clinical research as evidenced by an emerging history of completed research publications and/or presentations. To make the most of the clinical research training, an incoming intern would have their dissertation either nearly complete or complete before starting the internship. One of the objectives of the CBT elective is to solidify the interns' background and skills necessary for a career in academic research.

As part of our commitment to the Scientist-Practitioner model, clinical research is a regular and protected part of the CBT elective. Faculty from the anxiety (panic disorder, social phobia, PTSD, generalized anxiety disorder (GAD)), obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), bipolar, depression, psychotic disorders, digital mental health, and adult ADHD programs offer a wealth of research opportunities to CBT interns, including multiple ongoing investigations of the nature and treatment of anxiety and affective disorders. In addition to these direct experiences, the CBT Seminar provides training in the use of structured clinical interviews and discusses the methods and findings in recent clinical research trials. The structure of ongoing studies allows interns to add existing measures to ongoing projects or to design side studies of their own. Interns in the CBT elective track have at least 8 hours per week of protected research time and are assigned to one or more research mentors. Each intern will collaboratively develop research goals for the year with their research mentor(s) early in the training year.

The following Centers and Programs have worked with interns in recent years, with key psychology faculty involved in research training listed below:

Center for Digital Mental Health (CDMH)

• Sabine Wilhelm, PhD – Digital health interventions; artificial intelligence (AI)
• Adam Jaroszewski, PhD – Suicidal thoughts and behavior (STB); digital mental health interventions; artificial intelligence (AI); CBT for OCD
• Many of the faculty listed below are also affiliated with CDMH. For a full list see the Center website.

Center for Anxiety and Traumatic Stress Disorders (CATSD)

• Amanda W. Baker, PhD – Improving and personalizing treatments for anxiety, mood, and PTSD
• Don Robinaugh, PhD – Understanding the etiology of anxiety and traumatic stress disorders, with a particular focus on how these disorders may operate as complex systems

Center for OCD and Related Disorders (CORD)

• Sabine Wilhelm, PhD – OCD and OC spectrum disorders; treatment development and treatment outcome research; digital health interventions; artificial intelligence (AI)
• Ryan J. Jacoby, PhD – ERP for OCD; treatment development, mechanisms, and outcomes research; intolerance of uncertainty; repetitive negative thinking; multi-method measurement (e.g., EEG, eye-tracking, psychophysiology)

Dauten Family Center for Bipolar Treatment Innovation

• Louisa Sylvia, PhD – CBT for mood disorders in adults, especially bipolar disorder; mind-body and lifestyle interventions for depression
• Christina Temes, PhD – Treatment of bipolar disorder, learning health network approaches

Eating Disorders Clinical and Research Program (EDCRP) / Mass General Brigham Eating Disorders Research Collaborative

• Jennifer Thomas, PhD – Neurobiology and treatment of avoidant/restrictive food intake disorder and other eating disorders
• Kamryn T. Eddy, PhD – Neurobiology and novel evidence-based treatments for restrictive eating disorders
• Kendra Becker, PhD - Understanding biological (brain and hormone function) and emotional mechanisms motivating and maintaining disordered eating; how high physical activity in athletes impacts these relationships
• Lauren Breithaupt, PhD – Brain-body signaling mechanisms informing precision treatment for eating disorders and neuroimmune psychiatric conditions
• Helen Burton-Murray, PhD – Bio-behavioral mechanisms and treatment of gastrointestinal pain disorders, including overlap with eating disorders
• Evelyna Kambanis, PhD – Digital mental health treatments for eating disorders

Recovery Research Institute (RRI) / Center for Addiction Medicine (CAM)

• John Kelly, PhD – Addiction treatment and recovery; translation and implementation of evidence-based practices
• David Eddie, PhD – Addiction recovery; psychophysiology; and digital therapeutics
• Brandon G. Bergman, PhD – Substance use disorder recovery; social technology; mutual-help groups; developmental considerations in youth

Center for Precision Psychiatry (CPP)

• Karmel Choi, PhD – Genetic and environmental causes of depression; modifiable factors for depression prevention; lifestyle behavior (e.g., physical activity); psychological resilience; using large-scale data from young people and adults
• Rebecca Fortgang, PhD – Impulsivity in psychopathology; predicting, preventing, and understanding suicide and psychosis; methods including real-time monitoring and passive sensing

The Mood and Behavior Lab

• Richard Liu, PhD – Leveraging computational approaches, ambulatory methods (e.g., EMA and passive sensing), and social media data collection to model risk for depression, suicide and NSSI in childhood, adolescence, and emerging adulthood
• Taylor A. Burke, PhD – Suicidal and nonsuicidal self-injury prediction and prevention in youth and young adults using novel methodologies and computational approaches (e.g., intensive active and passive monitoring, computer vision, acoustic and visual behavior analysis); development and testing of brief digital interventions for suicide prevention

Depression Clinical & Research Program (DCRP)

• Paola Pedrelli, PhD – Assessment of depression using digital biomarkers derived from wearable devices and smartphone-based passive and active sensing; evaluation of ketamine-based treatments for depression; strategies to optimize and sustain treatment response; development of AI-based models to predict and personalize ketamine treatment outcomes
• Maren B. Nyer, PhD – Complementary integrative treatments for depression and related disorders (i.e., whole body hyperthermia, heated yoga, sauna, cryotherapy); ketamine assisted psychotherapy; innovative treatments for depression; whole person/holistic healing methods

Center for Women’s Mental Health

• Rachel Vanderkruik, PhD – Women's mental health; implementation research; mixed methods; digital and peer-delivered interventions; sports psychology

Center of Excellence for Psychosocial and Systemic Research / Psychosis Clinical & Research Program

• Corinne Cather, PhD – serious mental illness (e.g., CBT for psychosis, first episode and early psychosis, cardiovascular risk reduction for individuals with serious mental illness); substance use disorders (e.g., public health effects of cannabis commercialization, adolescent nicotine vaping); community psychology (consumer-based participatory research, training community health workers to deliver behavioral health support)
• Cheryl Y. S. Foo, PhD – Serious mental illness; treatment access; treatment engagement; family interventions; implementation and mixed methods research

Center for School Behavioral Health

• Randi M. Schuster, PhD – Etiology and treatment of adolescent substance use disorders; substance use and neuropsychiatric comorbidities; translation and implementation of evidence-based prevention and intervention programs in school-based settings
• Nicole DeTore, PhD – Transdiagnostic identification, prevention, and intervention for adolescents at risk for mental illnesses; early psychosis (first episode and clinical high risk for psychosis); functional outcome and psychiatric disability; social cognition in psychosis; digital applications in the prevention and early treatment of mental illnesses; evidence-based prevention and intervention programs in school-based settings.

As our Department of Psychology is housed in the Department of Psychiatry, we collaborate closely with our Psychiatry (MD) colleagues, and interns have also had co-mentorship pairings with MDs. For a full list of departmental faculty.

Didactics

In addition to the internship core didactics, the following seminars are required:

• CBT seminar (weekly)
• Behavioral Medicine seminar (weekly)
• Group supervision and case conferences

Supervision

• 2+ hours of individual supervision
• 2 hours of group supervision
• Supervision provided in both group and individual formats is designed to offer a variety of perspectives on the care of patients. In all cases, supervision is designed to combine perspectives based on empirical research and enhanced with clinical experience.

Awards

The Mass General/Harvard Medical School Doctoral Internship in Clinical Psychology received the "Outstanding Training Program" Award in 2011 by the Association for Behavioral and Cognitive Therapies (ABCT).

Postdoctoral Training Opportunities

In the past few years, we have had interns stay on for postdoctoral training in a number of different programs including the Center for OCD and Related Disorders, the Depression and Clinical Research Program, the Center for Anxiety and Traumatic Stress Disorders, the Psychotic Disorders Program, the Dauten Family Center for Bipolar Treatment Innovation and others. Interns tend to stay on with the programs in which they have worked during the internship year. More than half of CBT interns generally stay at Mass General for postdoctoral training, although there is no guarantee of postdoctoral positions.

Related Links

• Center for Anxiety and Traumatic Stress Disorders
• Cognitive Behavioral Therapy Program
• Center for OCD and Related Disorders
• Tic Disorders Clinic and Research Unit
• Dauten Family Center for Bipolar Treatment Innovation
• Eating Disorders Program
• SUD Program
• The Center for Digital Mental Health

Lifespan Health Elective Track

The Lifespan Health Elective is housed within the Center for Health Outcomes and Interdisciplinary Research (CHOIR). Interns receive both clinical and research training. Our program is designed to launch careers in psychology with a focus on the integration of mind, brain, body, and behavior across the lifespan. We are primarily training individuals who want to build clinical research careers in the development, testing and implementation of mind-body, lifestyle and behavioral interventions for patients, caregivers and/or dyads in hospital and community settings. We also have a unique focus on training in clinical geropsychology.

Interns:

1. Deliver evidence-based psychosocial interventions to patients, dyads, and groups, which aim to:

   • Enhance health and prevent chronic illness through lifestyle changes, such as mindfulness, exercise, social support, adaptive thoughts
   • Optimize the management of injury or illness
   • Promote recovery and prevent chronic illness after injury or surgery

2. Function on multidisciplinary, integrated, clinical and research teams in inpatient (e.g., medical-psychiatric unit, geriatric rehabilitation unit) and outpatient (e.g., orthopedics, psychiatry) settings.

3. Deliver integrated, manualized, in-person or virtual skills interventions to different populations (e.g., patients with acute and chronic pain, stroke, brain injury, neurological disorders, caregivers of persons with dementia) as part of federally funded clinical trials in hospital or community settings.

This curriculum overlaps with the Cognitive Behavioral Therapy Elective and Behavioral Medicine Elective, but the research interests of interns in this track should be primarily in mind-body intervention development, testing, and implementation to promote health, well-being, and resilience over the continuum of health to illness and across the lifespan.

Candidates

Successful candidates have demonstrated a commitment to clinical research through in-progress or completed peer-reviewed publications (~3-5 published or in press), presentations, awards, or small grants. Ideally, interns have fully completed their dissertations (or nearly completed them) before starting the internship. Interns who are interested in an academic research career, intervention development and implementation, and team-based science are well suited for this training program.

We highly encourage applicants with varied backgrounds to apply. We particularly welcome applications from Spanish Speaking interns. Given the unique opportunity to receive training and supervision working with geriatric, neurological, and chronic pain populations as well as with dyads and caregivers, we encourage students with relevant specializations (e.g., geropsychology, couples/families, chronic pain) to apply.

Treatment, Assessment & Evaluation

An effort is made to expose interns in the Lifespan Elective to varied cases, while also catering to their specific training needs and clinical and research interests.

Outpatient Experience

Interns provide services to patients coping with medical conditions and psychological distress as part of a multidisciplinary collaboration across Neurology, Psychiatry , Orthopedics, Palliative Care & Geriatrics Medicine, and on randomized clinical trials within CHOIR. Interns also provide individual and group treatments to a variety of medical populations as part of clinical research conducted at CHOIR. We also recently opened the CHOIR Caregiver Clinic, led by Drs. Evan Plys and Maggie Syme, this novel service is an opportunity for interns to gain rigorous training and experience providing evidence-based treatment to caregivers of people with neurodegenerative disorders.

Inpatient Experience

Interns see work in the psychiatric inpatient unit as part of their general rotation and have opportunities to work in other rehabilitation and medical settings (e.g., skilled nursing facility). Interns learn to deliver brief evidence-based interventions using second and third-wave cognitive behavioral approaches as well as foundations of consult-liaison psychology.

Community

Interns can gain experience working in community settings with adults and older adults with chronic pain and early cognitive decline in the greater Boston areas.

Supervision

Interns receive both individual and group supervision designed to provide training, support, and integrative perspectives on the care of patients and their families. Typically, interns carry approximately eight cases, with some as a part of ongoing clinical trials. Treatment is both individual and group, in person or virtual.

Research

The goal of this elective is to prepare interns for a career in academic research. Interns receive 1 day/week of protected time to complete dissertation projects, write manuscripts, and prepare small grants. Interns are supported to develop new research collaborations in medical practices that fit the mission of this program. Interns who stay on as postdoctoral fellows are encouraged to also develop a grant proposal idea during the second part of the internship year.

Interns may have opportunities for clinical research in a variety of topics, including:

• Aging adults
• Chronic pain
• Orthopedics
• Critical care
• Stroke
• Traumatic brain injury
• Neurodegenerative illness (e.g., dementias, MS, ALS)
• Caregivers and families
• Healthy adults interested in preserving brain health

Each intern will meet with their research mentor(s) at the beginning of the training year to discuss which opportunities are available and collaboratively develop a training plan for the internship year.

Interns receive the following research support:

• Protected research time
• Elective rotations with research component
• Grant and manuscript writing
• Presentations at professional conferences
• Mentorship on qualitative and quantitative methods
• Research and multidisciplinary seminars (e.g., “K-Club” seminar)

Mentoring

A successful career requires effective mentoring. In addition to supervision, interns receive weekly mentoring in career development and specific areas of research from faculty in CHOIR and across the larger MGB system. Mentoring will be focused not only on ensuring success during the clinical internship year but also facilitating a smooth transition to postdoc or faculty positions.

Faculty

The Lifespan Health Elective is co-directed by Ana-Maria Vranceanu, PhD, Director of the CHOIR, and Victoria Grunberg, PhD, Assistant Professor and clinical psychologist at CHOIR.

Didactics

Interns attend weekly required didactics, including:

• Behavioral medicine seminar (½ year)
• CBT seminar (½ year)
• Proseminar (1 year)
• Research Seminar (e.g., Methods, Journal Club, Works in Progress) (1 year)

Postdoctoral Training Opportunities

Interns who demonstrate outstanding performance and commitment to clinical research in an academic medical center may have the option to transition to a clinical research postdoctoral fellowship. Interested interns are encouraged to organize their research activities such that they can make a smooth transition to a fellowship year if positions are available. In addition, Lifespan Health interns have been successful in securing T32 postdoctoral fellowships, including the MGH Bridge-The-Gap (directed by Drs. Ana-Maria Vranceanu and Christine Ritchie) and HMS Integrative Health Fellowship.

Related Links

• More detailed information on this internship track can be found at Center for Health Outcomes and Interdisciplinary Research website. Please review link to our K club and our T32 in behavioral health interventions

Department of Psychiatry

For 80 years, Mass General's Psychiatry Department has provided the highest quality patient care through pioneering research. Learn more.

Training the Next Generation of Leaders in Psychiatry

Find information on psychiatry residencies, fellowships and other continuing medical education opportunities.

Neuropsychology Elective Track

The Neuropsychology Elective is designed to provide extensive clinical training and lay the foundation for careers in neuropsychology. The program follows APA/Division 40 guidelines for internship training in clinical neuropsychology.

Assessment & Evaluation

The core of clinical training in neuropsychology takes place in the Mass General Psychology Assessment Center (PAC). This is an outpatient setting in which interns gain experience in neuropsychological assessment and consultation with a variety of neurological and non-neurological patient populations. We contribute to the diagnosis and management of patients referred by neurology, neurosurgery, psychiatry, internal medicine, physical medicine and rehabilitation, and other services. Common patient populations include memory disorders, movement disorders, stroke, epilepsy, traumatic brain injury, brain tumor/oncology, autoimmune and infectious disease, toxic/metabolic conditions, neurodevelopmental/genetic disorders, psychiatric disorders, and patients with medically complex presentations.

Neuropsychology interns will evaluate mostly adult (18+) and geriatric patients and are supervised by adult-focused neuropsychologists with a variety of specialties. Interns with an interest in pediatric populations may also evaluate children and adolescents with supervision from lifespan and/or pediatric neuropsychologists within our division. Neuropsychology interns typically evaluate two patients per week and are responsible for all aspects of the evaluation under the supervision of clinical neuropsychologists in our Center. Interns will evaluate a variety of patients. This includes the opportunity to evaluate patients who speak languages other than English with the assistance of medically trained interpreters.

Consultation

Interns in the neuropsychology will serve as consultants in a variety of settings, including:

• Providing diagnostic and treatment planning information through report writing
• Feedback sessions with patients, families and referral sources
• Participation in multidisciplinary treatment team settings

Treatment

For the outpatient psychotherapy experience, interns see patients referred through behavioral medicine or cognitive behavioral therapy in the adult outpatient clinic. Neuropsychology track interns typically carry a caseload of one therapy patient while concurrently co-leading a therapy/cognitive rehabilitation group (e.g., CBT for ADHD, executive skills training).

Research

The track is based on the scientist-practitioner model. Interns will integrate research into their practice through literature review on a case-by-case basis. They additionally may have the opportunity to become involved in original or ongoing research at the PAC or in the larger Mass General community, though formal research participation is not required.

Faculty

The Neuropsychology Elective is led by Christina D. Kay, PhD. Interns will have the opportunity to work with Dr. Kay and several other neuropsychology faculty within the Psychology Assessment Center.

Didactics

In addition to the internship core didactics, the following seminars are required:

• Neuropsychology Seminar: This is a 10-month (Sept-Jun) 75-minute, weekly seminar designed to review topics related to the science and practice of neuropsychology. This seminar explores neurodevelopmental and acquired CNS syndromes, and topics related to neuropsychological practice and research, including but not limited to access, clinical interviewing and feedback, neurodevelopment, dementia assessment, recommendations and interventions for patients of all ages, with sensitive assessment and care, forensic issues related to neuropsychology practice, and neuroimaging in clinical syndromes. Speakers include PAC faculty as well as experts in the field from within and outside the MGH/HMS community.
• Clinical Case Conference: This is a 10-month (Sept-Jun), 1-hour, weekly seminar that alternates among three separate focus areas. 1) Fact-Finding (2x/month): trainees will participate in mock fact-finding led by faculty with an emphasis on how to collect, evaluate, and integrate information to effectively conceptualize a case, as well as formulate differential diagnoses and recommendations. 2) Case Presentation (1x/month): faculty will present cases that exemplify typical patterns of symptoms, dysfunction, and impairment within a particular disease class (e.g., alpha-synucleinopathies) with an emphasis on differential diagnosis to help identify syndromes (e.g., dementia with Lewy bodies). 3) Neuropsychology Grand Rounds (1x/month): faculty and trainees will have the opportunity to briefly present recent/active, highly complex, and/or atypical cases with the goal of soliciting feedback and consultation to assist with case conceptualization and recommendations.
• Additional Didactic Experiences: Behavioral Neurology Rounds, Neurology Grand Rounds, Behavioral Neuroscience Seminar, Epilepsy Case Conference/Neurosurgical Rounds, Movement Disorders Surgical Rounds, Joint Neurology, Neurosurgery, Psychiatry Rounds, and Neuroradiology Rounds

Supervision

• Neuropsychological assessment – 2 hours weekly including “real-time” supervision with each case assigned. Supervision is rotated among faculty throughout the year. Supervision is individualized and provided on all cases with an emphasis on fostering interns’ autonomy as internship progresses.
• Individual psychotherapy supervision – 1 hour weekly
• Group supervision through CCC – 1 hour weekly

Candidates

Successful candidates to the neuropsychology track have a strong foundational knowledge of brain-behavior relationships and neuropsychological assessment through applicable graduate coursework and practicum experiences. Candidates should have completed at least one neuropsychology-specific practicum.

Related Links

Psychology Assessment Center

Pediatric Neuropsychology Elective Track

The Pediatric Neuropsychology Elective track of the APA-accredited Clinical Psychology Internship at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH), in affiliation with Harvard Medical School (HMS), offers intensive training in the neuropsychological assessment and care of children and adolescents (ages 2-22) with a wide range of medical, neurological, and neurodevelopmental conditions.

The MGH Neuropsychology Division within the Department of Psychiatry includes the Learning and Emotional Assessment Program (LEAP) and the Psychology Assessment Center (PAC). LEAP is the pediatric neuropsychology clinic, while PAC is the adult neuropsychology clinic; both are located at One Bowdoin Square in Boston, MA. The pediatric neuropsychology intern will primarily work within the LEAP Program.

Clinical Training

Assessment

Interns gain extensive experience conducting comprehensive neuropsychological evaluations with children and adolescents presenting with varied conditions including epilepsy, brain tumors, multiple sclerosis and demyelinating diseases, genetic disorders, movement disorders, neurodevelopmental disorders (e.g., ADHD, learning disorders, autism spectrum disorder), and complex medical presentations. Evaluations emphasize the holistic integration of cognitive, socio-emotional, academic, and behavioral data in the context of neurodevelopment and cultural factors. Over the course of the year, interns become increasingly independent in case conceptualization, test selection and administration, scoring, interpretation, report writing, and feedback with families and referring providers.

Interns will typically perform two full neuropsychological evaluations per week. Interns may also provide neuropsychological consultations to parents. Opportunities for interdisciplinary collaboration with psychiatry, neurology, genetics, epilepsy, and other specialties are a key component of training. The program follows APA/Division 40 guidelines for internship training in clinical neuropsychology, informed by principles from the Houston and Minnesota conferences. The expectation is that interns will eventually pursue board certification in clinical neuropsychology with subspecialty certification in pediatric neuropsychology.

Outpatient Treatment

Pediatric neuropsychology interns will provide psychotherapy to children and adolescents who are referred to the Child Psychiatry Outpatient Clinic. Patients may present with multiple psychological, social, and medical challenges, and interns may participate in individual child therapy, cognitive behavioral therapy, parent guidance interventions and family therapy. Interns will typically have two outpatient therapy cases per week.

Psychiatric Inpatient Unit

All interns do a six-month, four-hour per week rotation providing acute intervention services on our medical psychiatric inpatient unit (Blake 11) attending patient rounds, seeing patients individually, and co-leading groups. While Blake is a mixed adult unit, there are often opportunities for child interns to see transitional age youth (age 18 to 26) for individual inpatient psychotherapy.

Didactics

In addition to the internship core didactics, there are didactic experiences for pediatric neuropsychology interns that are attended by postdoctoral fellows in neuropsychology, as well as child psychology interns. Clinical Rounds includes a monthly case conference, as well as fact-finding exercises. Collectively, didactics cover neuroanatomy, neurodevelopment, developmental psychopathology, medical/neurological disorders in childhood, and professional development.

• Child Psychology Seminar: 1 hour per week, 3 weeks/month
• LEAP Clinical Rounds: 1 hour per week
• Child CBT Seminar: 1 hour per week for 6 months
• Blake Seminar: 1 hour per week for 6 months

Optional Didactic Experiences

• Psychiatry Grand Rounds
• Neurology Grand Rounds
• Behavioral Neurology Rounds
• Epilepsy Case Conference/Neurosurgical Rounds
• Movement Disorders Surgical Rounds
• Neuroradiology Rounds
• Family Therapy Seminar

Supervision

• Assessment supervision: 2 hours per week by LEAP faculty
• Individual psychotherapy supervision: 1 hour per week

Mentorship

In addition to the many opportunities for informal mentorship at MGH, pediatric neuropsychology interns will also meet for 1 hour, at least twice a month, with the internship track director for formal mentorship of the internship experience and planning for post-doctoral fellowship.

Research Opportunities

While the internship is clinically focused, interns may participate in ongoing research at LEAP and/or affiliated labs, with potential opportunities for scholarly publications or presentations. Current research focuses on issues related to neuropsychology practice (e.g., efficacy of parent consultations and telehealth evaluations) and the relationship between variability in neuropsychological profiles and developmental psychopathology.

After Internship

Within the MGH Neuropsychology Division, there are multiple two-year postdoctoral fellowships that pediatric neuropsychology interns may pursue, including a fellowship in pediatric neuropsychology and a fellowship in lifespan neuropsychology. Additional opportunities for research-oriented interns may also be available and should be discussed with the pediatric neuropsychology track director. The MGH Neuropsychology Division has a strong record of retaining interns for postdoctoral fellowships and faculty positions within MGB.

Related Links

Learning and Emotional Assessment Program (LEAP)

Psychology Assessment Center

Child and Adolescent Psychiatry