Yale-New Haven Hospital

Facility Overview

Yale-New Haven Hospital (YNHH) is the major teaching and clinical research facility of the Yale University School of Medicine. It is a 900 bed general hospital that encompasses the Smilow Cancer Hospital, Yale-New Haven Children’s Hospital, and Yale-New Haven Psychiatric Hospital.

Yale New-Haven Hospital is a state-of-the-art facility offering a safe, quiet campus conveniently located in New Haven. With a longstanding history of experience, innovation, tradition, and excellence, Yale-New Haven Hospital consistently ranks among the best hospitals in the United States. Yale-New Haven Hospital has a longstanding commitment to innovation and quality, family-centered care delivered within a world class facility to an ethnically and socioeconomically diverse population of patients from throughout Connecticut and the surrounding New England region.

Yale-New Haven Psychiatric Hospital (YNHPH) is a 74 bed, acute care, psychiatric facility that consists of four main inpatient programs and several specialized step-down intensive outpatient/day hospital programs for adolescents and adults. The Department of Psychiatry offers a range of comprehensive services located within YNHPH and multiple other practice settings within Yale-New Haven Hospital that include: Adolescent Inpatient and Intensive Outpatient Services, Adult Inpatient and Intensive Outpatient Services, Psychiatric Consultation-Liaison Services, Psychiatric Emergency Services, and Psychological Medicine Services.

Internship Placements

The psychology internship program within Yale-New Haven Hospital includes three distinct 12-month training options, one of which must be selected and designated on the Application Form which is used as a cover sheet for your application. Each training option is based on a scientist-practitioner model where the intern is exposed to a variety of clinical, research, and didactic training opportunities. For all interns, one half day is reserved for Departmental seminars and related activities. A second half-day is reserved for scholarly research.

Yale-New Haven Hospital psychology training options are as follows:

• Adolescent Services
• Adult DBT Services
• Behavioral Medicine Services

The training programs in each service emphasize the acquisition of core competencies in assessment, intervention, consultation, research and cultural diversity. As such, interns within each service receive training in direct patient care, group leadership, participate in multidisciplinary team rounds and staff conferences, and have exposure to a range of therapeutic, administrative, and theoretical issues. Predoctoral interns are trained in multiple therapeutic modalities, including crisis intervention, individual, group and family therapy, and in collaborative methods for pharmacologic and evidence-based psychotherapeutic interventions. All predoctoral interns also receive clinical training in psychological assessment, and have the opportunity to conduct long-term psychodynamically-informed individual psychotherapy within Yale's Long Term Care Clinic (LTCC).

Supervision

A high priority is placed on the provision and practice of clinical supervision at YNHH. Predoctoral interns at YNHH receive a minimum four hours of supervision per week, where at least two of these hours are provided within the context of weekly individual supervision with full and part-time faculty members who have specific interests and expertise within the intern’s primary training placement. In addition, interns also participate in scheduled weekly small group clinical and/or research supervision meetings with other psychology trainees and program staff.

Each intern is assigned a Primary Advisor for weekly supervision of assigned cases including individual, group, and family therapy. Primary advisors are permanent full-time faculty assigned to the same clinical program that the intern is assigned. In addition to formal weekly supervision, a major form of supervision is provided "in vivo" via modeling, treatment team meetings, and consultation.

Interns are also assigned an individual Secondary Advisor and Clinical Supervisor who provide additional weekly clinical supervision for the entire training year. Through intensive supervision, interns also address issues of professional development and learn about the complexities of different roles within diverse treatment settings.

A unique feature of the training at YNHH is that interns are also assigned the role of “peer supervisor” to junior trainees within their primary clinical placement. Typically, junior trainees are third or fourth year graduate students from regional doctoral psychology programs who are participating in clinical practicum placements at YNHH. As a “peer supervisor”, interns meet weekly with their supervisee and have the opportunity to develop basic skills as a clinical supervisor by processing this experience within the context of their own primary supervisory relationship.

Seminars

Predoctoral interns at YNHH attend and participate in a range of required departmental and hospital-based seminars. At YNHH, interns attend, interact, and present material at the hospital’s weekly Psychology Fellow Seminar. Faculty from throughout the Psychiatry Department and medical school present on topics pertinent to hospital practice such as psychological assessment and psychopharmacology; evidence-based theory and practice; crisis intervention; family assessment and treatment; and advanced group psychotherapy techniques. Additional topics are added each year depending on the interests of interns and faculty. In this seminar group, interns also have the opportunity to present clinical case material as well as findings from independent research projects.

Interns are encouraged to attend a variety of optional departmental clinical and research forums, including elective seminars within the Department of Psychiatry, weekly Departmental Grand Rounds, invited lectures, and special clinical and research forums throughout YNHH and Yale School of Medicine.

A one-day Conference on Borderline Personality Disorder is held each year co-sponsored by the YNHPH, Yale School of Medicine, Department of Psychiatry, the National Education Alliance for Borderline Personality Disorder, and NAMI-Connecticut. These conferences have addressed pressing clinical issues related to BPD such as suicidality in adolescents, trauma and resiliency, and problems of substance use, with internationally recognized experts in their respective fields. In addition to providing valuable continuing education to mental health professionals, these conferences are open to individuals who struggle with BPD and their families and strongly emphasis support and recovery models. YNHH predoctoral interns have the opportunity to attend and participate in this annual event.

Long-Term Care Program

All YNHH predoctoral interns receive weekly supervised individual psychotherapy training within the Long Term Care Clinic.

The Long Term Care Clinic is an outpatient psychotherapy training clinic operated by the Department of Psychiatry and YNHH. Individual patients are referred to this clinic by the Yale University Health Services, and as such are typically members of the University community who are seeking insight-oriented psychotherapy for a variety of identified issues, most commonly related to developmental, relationship, mood, and/or anxiety concerns.

Within the LTCC, individual weekly supervision from a psychodynamic perspective is provided to guide the intern in conceptualizing and implementing treatment from an insight-oriented therapeutic modality most appropriate to the assigned cases. Typically, predoctoral interns see one individual therapy patient in once-a-week psychotherapy for the full duration of their training year.