This elective is a part of the Internship in Clinical Psychology. This predoctoral internship is open to matriculated doctoral students enrolled in clinical or counseling psychology programs.
Interns receive training in a variety of multidisciplinary, integrated clinical and research teams across medical, community, and virtual 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 technology-enhanced 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.
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. Interns develop expertise delivering integrated, manualized, in-person or virtual skills interventions to varied populations. We particularly welcome applications from Spanish Speaking interns and those who identify as under-resourced in medicine or psychology.
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.
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 CHIOR.
Interns see patients and their families as part of the Neurosciences Intensive Care Unit (Neuro-ICU). They also work in the psychiatric inpatient unit as part of their general rotation and have opportunity to work in other ICU settings. Interns learn to deliver empathic, direct, and brief skills training using second and third-wave cognitive behavioral approaches and work closely with the medical teams.
Interns will be able to gain experience in community engaged research by working with older adults in the Boston Black Churches, older adults with chronic pain and early cognitive decline in the greater Boston areas, and adults in under-resourced community clinics.
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.
Interns provide consultations to medical patients and staff in the Intensive Care Units directly triggered from inpatient medical practices.
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:
Each week, interns receive the following research support:
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.
The Lifespan Health Elective is co-led by Ana-Maria Vranceanu, PhD, Director of the CHOIR, and Victoria Grunberg, PhD, Assistant Director of Training at CHOIR.
Interns attend weekly required didactics, including:
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. Interns who identify as under-resourced in medicine will be able to apply for pilot grants as part of the Research and Education Core (directed by Drs. Ana-Maria Vranceanu and Maureen O’Connor) of the MGH Resource Center for Minority Aging (directed by Dr. Okereke, a CHOIR affiliated investigator and intern mentor).
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This elective is a part of the Internship in Clinical Psychology. This predoctoral internship is open to matriculated doctoral students enrolled in clinical or counseling psychology programs.
