Summary of the Characteristics of the Specified Internship Class
| 2022-2023 | 2023-2024 | 2024-2025 | |
| Number of completed applications: | 129 | 125 | 88 |
| Number of applicants invited for interviews: | 35 | 35 | 35 |
| Total number of interns: | 3 | 3 | 3 |
| Total number of interns from APA/CPA accredited programs: | 3 | 3 | 3 |
| Total number of interns from Ph.D. programs: | 3 | 3 | 1 |
| Total number of interns from Psy.D. programs: | 0 | 0 | 2 |
| Total number of interns from Ed.D. programs: | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Number of interns that come from a Clinical Psychology program: | 0 | 0 | 2 |
| Number of interns that come from a Counseling Psychology program: | 3 | 3 | 1 |
| Number of interns that come from a School Psychology program: | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Range of integrated assessment reports: lowest number of reports written: | 1 | 0 | 0 |
| Range of integrated assessment reports: highest number of reports written: | 7 | 6 | 14 |
Internship Admissions, Support, and Initial Placement Data
Internship Program Admissions
| Briefly describe in narrative form important information to assist potential applicants in assessing their likely fit with your program. This description must be consistent with the program's policies on intern selection and practicum and academic preparation requirements: | Applicants must be advanced doctoral students with appropriate coursework in assessment, personality theory, and diagnosis as well as counseling theory and practice. All formal coursework, supervised practicum experience (minimum of 450 direct intervention hours), and comprehensive exams must be completed before the beginning of the internship year. Applicants with a demonstrated interest in working with multicultural populations are preferred. Applicants from APA-accredited doctoral programs in counseling or clinical psychology are preferred. |
| Does the program require that applicants have received a minimum number of hours of the following at the time of application? If yes, indicate how many: |
Total Direct Contact Intervention Hours: 450 hours (Before the beginning of the internship year.) Total Direct Contact Assessment Hours: None. |
| Describe any other required minimum criteria used to screen applicants: |
N/A |
Financial and Other Benefit Support for Upcoming Training Year
| Annual Stipend/Salary for Full-Time Interns | $49,920 |
| Annual Stipend/Salary for Half-Time Interns | N/A |
| Does the program provide access to medical insurance for interns? | Yes |
| If access to medical insurance is provided: | |
| Trainee contribution to cost required? | Yes |
| Is coverage of family member(s) available? | Yes |
| Is coverage of legally married partners available? | Yes |
| Is coverage of domestic partners available? | Yes |
| Hours of Annual Paid Personal Time Off (PTO and/or Vacation) | 192 hours |
| Hours of Annual Paid Sick Leave | 96 hours |
| In the event of medical conditions and/or family needs that require extended leave, does the program allow reasonable unpaid leave to interns/residents in excess of personal time off and sick leave? | Yes |
| Other Benefits | Up to 40 hours of professional development time. |
Initial Post-Internship Positions
(provide an aggregated tally for the preceding three cohorts)| 2021-2024 | |
| Total # of interns who were in the 3 cohorts | 9 |
| Total # of interns who did not seek employment because they returned to their doctoral program/are completing a doctoral degree | 0 |
| Post-doctoral residency position | Employed position | |
| Community Mental Health Center | N/A | N/A |
| Federally qualified health center | N/A | N/A |
| Independent primary care facility/clinic | N/A | N/A |
| University counseling center | 5 | 1 |
| Veteran Affairs Medical Center | N/A | N/A |
| Military health center | N/A | N/A |
| Academic health center | N/A | N/A |
| Other medical centers or hospital | 1 | 1 |
| Psychiatric hospital | N/A | N/A |
| Academic university/department | N/A | 2 |
| Community College or other teaching setting | N/A | N/A |
| Independent research institution | N/A | N/A |
| Correctional facility | N/A | N/A |
| School district/system | N/A | N/A |
| Independent practice setting | N/A | N/A |
| Not currently employed | N/A | N/A |
| Changed to another field | N/A | N/A |
| Other | N/A | N/A |
| Unknown | N/A | N/A |
FAQs
Is it appropriate for applicants to contact current trainees and staff with questions? Yes. Please email Kusha (kmurarka@berkeley.edu) to request current trainees and staff contact information. When contacting trainees and staff, please ask how they would prefer to be in communication (e.g., phone or email).
How diverse is UC Berkeley’s student body? UC Berkeley’s community has rich cultural, ethnic, social, and socioeconomic diversity in which every state and over 100 countries are represented. For instance, in Fall 2024, Berkeley had 33,070 undergraduate students and 12, 812 graduate students. Of the new undergraduate students, about 29% of them were first-generation college students; about 27% of them were from underrepresented minority groups; about 13% of them identified as LGBTQ+ individuals; about 10% of them are international students. More diversity data can be viewed on these links below:
- opa.berkeley.edu/campus-data/uc-berkeley-quick-facts
- opa.berkeley.edu/uc-berkeley-fall-enrollment-data-new-undergraduates
What are you looking for in an intern? The majority of our doctoral interns have previous practical experience in counseling centers, experience providing brief therapy, and experience with crisis management. It is helpful for doctoral interns to have some knowledge/experience in assessment, career counseling, and supervision. As a staff, we value diversity both in terms of learning from each other and from the students we serve. Applicants who can articulate how diversity has impacted them on a personal and professional level tend to be a good fit with our training program. Similarly, we are looking for individuals who enjoy working collaboratively in a multidisciplinary team setting.
Do you look at social networking sites as part of the evaluation process? Currently, we do not seek out information from social networking sites as part of our evaluation process.
Can I receive specialized training in some clinical areas? You will get specialized training in providing multiculturally competent brief therapy; crisis management; and group therapy. Other specialized training (e.g., specific clinical issues, couples counseling, specific populations) can occur through individual supervision. However, this needs to be discussed with the Training Director and your supervisor. If you have specific training goals/needs that are not specified in our materials please ask before, or during, the interview so we can discuss the possibilities.
Does CAPS work from a Single Session model of therapy? No, CAPS provides short-term mental health counseling prioritizing same-day appointments to ensure students have rapid access to care. Our model is focused on Open and Rapid Access to students given the historic wait times in UCCs.
Are there session limits at CAPS? Technically, we do not advertise session limits, but in the 2023-2024 academic year students utilized 2-3 sessions on average, with a range of 1-48 this past year! The mode for counseling at most UCCs across the country is 1 session. Our Open Access model is intended to be “come in as needed” rather than time-limited like most traditional brief therapy models. We believe that “one size does NOT fit all” so it makes more sense to offer open-ended sessions for this student population. Up-front assessment is typically decreased and the counselor and student quickly engage in the intervention phase of the counseling process. The approach is flexible based on the student’s needs, counselor’s judgment, and availability. If students are wanting weekly, regular sessions, then we will often talk about other resources and/or referral into the community.
Do you provide telemental health? Yes, we offer the option of receiving mental health services remotely through phone and Zoom video. Interns are issued laptops so they can work from home or in the office and provide these telemental health options. However, post-pandemic campus life and student demand have increased the need for on-site, in-person services, so the majority of services are now being offered in person.
How many long-term clients do I get to have? Two. However, the clients you see for longer-term therapy need to fit specific criteria that you will discuss with your supervisor and colleagues in a case conference.
Please describe opportunities for crisis counseling. All interns have “on-call sessions” -usually 2 hours per week – where they see students reporting an urgent need to see a provider today as well as take calls from staff, faculty, and parents concerned about a student.
Are there opportunities for testing? There are a number of assessments available for doctoral interns to use in working with students. Our staff primarily uses the Strong Interest Inventory and Myers-Briggs Type Indicator when working with students with career issues. Other assessments may be used when clinically indicated. We are also in the process of developing an ADHD pilot program and interns may have the opportunity to learn and administer ADHD assessments. In the assessment seminar, you will learn about these assessments and others that you might choose to use in your clinical work.
Are there opportunities to do outreach? Yes. Interns play an important role in our outreach to the campus. CAPS frequently gets requests from the campus to do workshops, training, and other preventive mental health programs as well as doing proactive outreach work to the campus to reach underserved populations. We do approximately 100 outreach events/year. Interns are expected to be involved in these outreach efforts (the expectation is that interns will be involved in at least 3 outreach events per semester) and to develop their skills and comfort level in leading such programs. In addition, interns are paired with senior clinicians to respond to urgent outreach requests (e.g., crisis debriefings, and responses to campus emergencies), which may involve evening work. Finally, some doctoral interns have served as liaisons to various campus partners by providing consultation and programming as needed.
Will doctoral interns be able to provide supervision? Yes. Every year we have doctoral interns supervising our career practicum interns. However, sometimes we have fewer career interns than we do doctoral interns. All doctoral interns participate in the Supervision of Supervision seminar and every effort is made to have interns, especially those without prior supervision experience, supervise for at least one semester.
How are supervisory assignments made? During the summer interns are sent an email asking, among other things, what their goals are for supervision and what they would like in a supervisor. The training staff meets to discuss possible matches based on the stated interests and goals of the incoming doctoral intern. Similarly, staff also have a say in whom they would like to work with based on their availability and own interests.
Do interns have an opportunity to lead groups at CAPS? Yes, we welcome intern involvement in our group program. CAPS offers a range of therapy, support, and psycho-educational groups each semester. Interns are encouraged each year to co-lead at least one group with a post-doctoral fellow or senior staff member. Group leadership assignments are based both upon the clinical needs of the group program and the training needs of an intern.
Will you accept a 4th letter of recommendation? We will accept it but we may not read it. Given the number of applications we receive and the short time allotted before we need to make very important decisions (i.e., who to interview) we suggest only sending 3 letters from individuals you believe can best speak to your skills and areas for growth. This will ensure we read your best letters of support.
How would you characterize the culture of CAPS? We are passionate about improving the university student experience, prioritizing access to care through the lens of DEIBJ, and enjoy celebrating our team's wins and milestones (sometimes with food!) That said, this is a fast-paced setting that is highly utilized. Thus, there can be increased stress during certain times of the year when demand for services is high. We continually look at how we can balance meeting student needs while at the same taking care of ourselves.
Are staff involved in research? A few members are involved in research and publishing. However, there is no formal program of research during the internship program. Interns are provided two hours of research time each week to focus on their dissertation or other interesting projects.
Are there opportunities to teach? There is no formal opportunity to teach on an ongoing basis; however, there might be some opportunities to guest lecture from time to time.
Will I get my own office? Due to hybrid schedules, we are currently sharing offices. Interns will be assigned a specific office for the days they are designated to work on-site.
Will I have access to computers? Of course. Each office is equipped with a desktop computer and each fellow will be issued a Chromebook which allows access to patient information. All notes and scheduling are done electronically on our electronic medical records system.
How many applications do you typically receive and how many applicants will remain under active consideration after interviews? Each year we typically receive around 90-120 applications and interview around 35 candidates. We rank the most interviewed candidates. Last year we received 88 applications for the doctoral internship, interviewed 35, and ranked 34.
Do I need to call you after the interview to "show interest" and hopefully improve my chances of getting ranked high? No. However, feel free to contact us if you have any questions that are not addressed on our website or that were not addressed during the interview. Email is often the easiest way to reach us.
Do you have an Open House? We will not host an open house this year. However, current interns will host Q&A sessions after the interview process is completed. Such Q&A sessions are for you to ask questions about living and working at Berkeley, and your participation is completely voluntary and it is not part of a formal interview.
Applicants are welcome to visit in person and we do not privilege applicants who visit over those that do not. More often than not we have matched with applicants who have not visited (or met with the training director). That is, there is no advantage - rankings-wise - to visiting or talking directly with the training director. If you would like to visit - that is, if seeing the site and/or meeting with the training director will help you in your decision-making - you are more than welcome and we will do our best to accommodate your schedule.
What do interns do after they leave? All kinds of things. Many interns complete a postdoctoral fellowship to gain hours for licensure (current interns are given preference for our postdoctoral fellowship positions at CAPS); some interns apply for staff positions in counseling centers; some go on to teach at universities; and a few interns have left to work as consultants.
Do doctoral interns get preferential consideration for job openings? Interns do get preferential consideration for our Postdoctoral Fellowship positions, but not necessarily staff positions. Several doctoral interns have joined our staff at some point after finishing their training experience. Having worked here helps you understand the challenges and rewards of working at CAPS and thus gives any applicant somewhat of an advantage during an interview.
How do doctoral interns survive on the stipend? It is a challenge but many of our interns have found creative ways to get by on the salary. We suggest contacting current interns directly for more information about this particular issue. We continue to advocate for increases in the stipend.
My program requires that internship sites complete our own university's evaluation form. Will you do that? At the end of every semester, the Director of Training sends the Academic Training Director a letter summarizing the intern's performance to date along with a copy of the primary supervisor's evaluation of the intern. Therefore, if you are enrolled in an academic training program that requires additional training contracts and/or evaluations, these will not be completed by our training staff. Your program may choose to use the data from our evaluations to complete their own forms. You are strongly encouraged to consult with your Director of Clinical Training or Kusha if you have questions about this policy.
Could you describe the diversity of your staff? Our counseling center prides itself on the diversity of the staff. Our staff is diverse with respect to age, gender, ethnicity, ability, sexual orientation, religion/spirituality, and size. In addition, theoretical orientations and areas of expertise vary among staff members.
