Updated September 23, 2024
INTRODUCTION
Established in 1947, the Psychology Training Program is a significant component of mental health services and is fully integrated into the VA Long Beach Healthcare System. Since 1980, we have trained 322 doctoral interns, representing over 100 graduate programs from around the country. The internship program has been accredited by the American Psychological Association since February 1980. Our psychology training program also includes practicum students from local universities as well as postdoctoral fellows. Most staff psychologists are members of the Mental Health Care Group and our Chief of Mental Health is psychiatrist, Lawrence Albers, M.D. Our Chief Psychologist is Vanessa Hurwitz, Ph.D. Leela Farina, Ph.D. is the Director of Psychology Doctoral Training Programs. Spring Flores Johnson, Ph.D. is the Director of our Psychology Postdoctoral Training Program, first funded in 2008. Christine Kim, Ph.D. and Grace Kim, Ph.D. are the Associate Directors of Psychology Training, coordinating the Neuropsychology training program and the general practicum program respectively. The Directors of Training are advised by the Executive Training Committee. Over half of our training psychologists have been hired in the past 10 years. We also have one psychology technician who manages our psychological testing lab. We provide generalist training in Health Services Psychology within the context of a VA healthcare facility. Like all VA training programs we primarily serve adult Veterans and some active military service members, the majority of whom are male, although an increasing percentage of younger Veterans and active duty service members are women. Because we are also a general medical and surgical facility as well as a broad provider of psychological and psychiatric services, we have many opportunities for a health psychology focus.
TRAINING MODEL AND PROGRAM PHILOSOPHY
Our Psychology Internship Training Program at the VA Long Beach Healthcare System is committed to close supervision and competency-based training in a highly collegial setting. We endorse the scientist-practitioner model of psychology, and the internship training experience is organized accordingly. We are guided by both the original Boulder Model (Raimy,1950) and the update of the scientist-practitioner model as articulated at the 1991 Gainesville conference (Belar & Perry, 1992). Interns are strongly encouraged to complete the defense of their dissertations prior to their internship start date in order to take full advantage of the rich training opportunities available throughout the internship year. Prior to our internship, candidates are expected to have a solid grounding in the science of psychology. We can teach generalist psychology and evidence-based treatments, but we have to assume that our interns come with the underlying scientific rigor that can only be provided by their undergraduate and graduate programs. We tailor our internship program to meet the individual training needs of each intern. Although our psychology staff provides a number of specialized services, we believe that training in health service psychology at the doctoral level
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