Summary of the Characteristics of the Specified Internship Class
2021-2022 | 2022-2023 | 2023-2024 | |
Number of completed applications: | 139 | 129 | 125 |
Number of applicants invited for interviews: | 42 | 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 | 3 |
Total number of interns from Psy.D. programs: | 0 | 0 | 0 |
Total number of interns from Ed.D. programs: | 0 | 0 | 0 |
Number of interns that come from a Clinical Psychology program: | 0 | 0 | 0 |
Number of interns that come from a Counseling Psychology program: | 3 | 3 | 3 |
Number of interns that come from a School Psychology program: | 0 | 0 | 0 |
Range of integrated assessment reports: lowest number of reports written: | 0 | 1 | 0 |
Range of integrated assessment reports: highest number of reports written: | 5 | 7 | 6 |
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 500 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: 500 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 | $42,200 |
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)2020-2023 | |
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 | 1 |
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 2021, Berkeley had 31,814 undergraduate students, and about 29% of them were first-generation college students; about 23% of them were from underrepresented groups; about 13% of them identified as LGBTQ+ individuals; about 13% of them are international students. More diversity data can be viewed on the Berkeley Equity and Inclusion website.
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.
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 residential life (dormitories), providing consultation to resident advisors and resident directors, 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 the CAPS? We like to have fun with each other, love working with college students, and enjoy celebrating each other's accomplishments (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 better meet the need for student access while at the same time monitoring self-care.
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? We hope that every doctoral intern will have their own office. For the past several years interns have had their own assigned offices. However, due to the growing staff at CAPS and hybrid schedules, sometimes interns need to share an office with other staff members. We are in the process of identifying office space in the Tang Center and on campus to accommodate our growing staff.
Will I have access to computers? Yes. Each office is equipped with Microsoft's Office Suite, Google Suite applications including email and Google Drive through Google Chrome, and Point and Click (our electronic medical record) which allows access to patient information. All notes are done electronically. On remote days, interns use their university-issued Chromebooks to work.
How many applications do you typically receive and how many applicants will remain under active consideration after interviews? Each year we receive around 120-130 applications and interview around 40 candidates. We rank the most interviewed candidates. Last year we received 125 applications for the doctoral internship, interviewed 36, 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 have not decided if we will host an open house this year. However, oftentimes current trainees 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? Not really, although 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.