Mount Sinai Morningside and Mount Sinai West Doctoral Internship in Clinical Psychology

The Internship begins on July 1 and ends on June 30. Interns are expected to work at least forty hours per week, including two evenings in the Adult Outpatient Psychiatry Clinic (Adult Track) and three evenings in the Child Outpatient Psychiatry Clinic (Child Track). 

Program Disclosures

Mount Sinai Morningside and Mount Sinai West are equal opportunity employers. In accord with New York City, New York State, and federal law, discrimination on the basis of age, gender, race/ethnicity, veteran status, religion, marital status, disability, sexual orientation or pregnancy, is forbidden.

Information for International Students: We welcome applications from international students who are enrolled in doctoral programs in the United States. We will provide documentation (usually in the form of an offer letter) that assists the student in obtaining work authorization and to preserve optional practical training (OPT) for postdocs (applicable to F1 visas). Because University International Student offices vary in their protocols, we encourage students to check with their international students' office in advance of Match Day, and discuss needs for start and end date with the Training Director, as all interns need to complete 12 months of internship.

Internship Program Admissions

Our program, housed at Mount Sinai Morningside and Mount Sinai West, is a comprehensive two-track internship program. Five interns are accepted in to the adult track, and four interns are accepted in to the child track. All internship applicants are expected to have completed a minimum of two full testing batteries and integrated reports before applying. Further, the program requires that applicants have a minimum number of hours of intervention and related supervision at the time of application.

In facilitating interns’ proficiency to function as independent, generalist psychologists, the Internship Program is dedicated to developing certain core competencies. These are competencies in: (1) research skills; (2) ethical and legal standards; (3) multicultural awareness; (4) professional values, attitudes, and behaviors; (5) communication and interpersonal skills; (6) assessment skills; (7) models for intervention including evidence-based methods; (8) supervision skills, and (9) consultation and inter-professional/interdisciplinary skills.

Training in various diagnoses and modalities of evidence-based psychotherapy and assessment is integral to this process. An integrative treatment approach—combining psychodynamic, cognitive behavioral, systems, ethno-cultural, developmental and medical model perspectives—is emphasized. This approach is taught, and practiced by psychology interns, throughout the various clinical placements and didactics. Within this approach, an attempt is made to individually tailor each intern’s experience in accordance with their interests and goals. Ongoing program planning and evaluation involving the interns and their supervisors are an integral part of the program. Interns are encouraged to assume a gradually increasing degree of professional responsibility and autonomy as the year progresses.

Application

Mount Sinai Morningside and Mount Sinai West participate in the Association of Psychology Postdoctoral and Internship Centers (APPIC) Matching Program, using the National Matching Services, Inc. (NMS). We thus ask that applicants follow the application process described in the AAPI Application for Psychology Internship (AAPI) Online section of the APPIC website (www.appic.org), and the procedures described for psychology internship programs on the NMS website. (www.natmatch.com/psychint). The NMS Program Match Code for the Adult Track is 147912; the NMS Program Match Code for the Child Track is 147913.

The first step is providing the following materials, via AAPI Online and submitted by the deadline indicated on their website.

• Application
• Cover letter (including your statement of interest in either the Adult or Child Track of our Internship Program)
• Two letters of recommendation (including at least one familiar with your clinical skill) 
• Graduate school transcript 
• Recent psycho-diagnostic testing report (redacted for confidentiality)

Please note that the psycho-diagnostic testing report, which is not part of the regular AAPI Online application, must be converted into an electronic document (e.g., via scanning), uploaded to the AAPI Online service, and attached to the application as a “supplementary material.”

The second step is interviewing with our Internship Program site. Because of the large number of applications, we can only invite a subgroup of applicants for interview. This year we will be conducting all interviews remotely. We will contact you by early-to-mid December to either invite you to interview or to inform you that we are not inviting you for interview.

The Mount Sinai Morningside and Mount Sinai West Psychology Internship Program abides by all APPIC rules governing the application and selection process. Under these rules, once a candidate's application is under consideration, very little information about the status of the applicant may be released.

Qualifications

In accordance with our philosophy, model and goals, interns with interests and experiences that match these elements are selected. In particular, the following are qualifications for the internship program: 

• Being a doctoral student in an APA-accredited PhD or PsyD doctoral program in clinical, counseling, or combined clinical-school psychology (both adult and child tracks) or school psychology (child track). Questions related to the program’s accredited status should be directed to the Commission on Accreditation by mail at Office of Program Consultation and Accreditation, American Psychological Association, 750 1st Street, NE, Washington, DC 20002; by phone at 202-336-5979, by email at apaaccred@apa.org, or at their website: www.apa.org/ed/accreditation.
• Having completed at least three years of doctoral study in such a program.
• Having completed at least two years of supervised practicum and externship clinical experience with ethno-culturally diverse, poor, urban populations, comparable to those served by our hospital center (e.g. people with severe and severe mental illness (adult track) , people with personality disorders (adult track), latency age and adolescent youth (child track), and others).
• Having worked in diverse clinical settings, comparable to those of our internship (e.g. intensive outpatient treatment programs (both adult and child tracks), inpatient units (adult track), community or hospital outpatient psychiatric clinics (both adult and child tracks), foster care or social service agencies (child track), schools (child track), and others).
• Having conducted individual and group therapy (both adult and child tracks).
• Having administered, scored, interpreted and written reports on at least two comprehensive psycho-diagnostic assessments.

We recognize the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on training in 2020 and 2021 and will adjust the above criteria accordingly.

Direct Contact Hours

• Total Direct Contact Intervention Hours: 550 (650 preferred, but required minimum of 550)
• Total Direct Contact Assessment Hours: 50 preferred

Financial and Other Benefit Support for Upcoming Training Year

• Annual Salary for Full-Time Interns: $31,500
• Annual Salary for Half-Time Interns: N/A

Additional Benefits

All interns have access to medical insurance, should they want it. Interns are required to contribute to the cost of medical insurance. Interns have the option of adding coverage for family members, including legally married and domestic partners.

Interns have 22 days of annual paid time off (including PTO and/or vacation), and 7 days of annual paid sick leave (including disability, where applicable). In the event of medical conditions and/or family needs, reasonable unpaid leave is offered. Dental and vision insurance is available.

In the event of medical conditions and/or family needs that require extended leave, the program allows reasonable unpaid leave to interns beyond PTO and sick leave. These hours may or may not be added to the end of the internship year depending on the specific circumstances.

Note: PD= Post-doctoral residency position; EP = Employed Position. Each individual represented in this table is counted only one time. For former trainees working in more than one setting, the setting that represents their primary position is selected.

If you have questions regarding your application, please contact:

Leora Heckelman, PhD, Director of Psychology Education and Training
Department of Psychiatry Mount Sinai Morningside and Mount Sinai West
Division of Education and Training
1090 Amsterdam, 16th floor
New York, N.Y. 10025
leora.heckelman@mountsinai.org

The Psychology Education and Training Division also offers supervised clinical opportunities for Post-Doctoral Fellowship. Typically, there are seven Post-Doctoral Fellows. These include three Post-Doctoral Fellows in the Adult Track, and four Post-Doctoral Fellows in the Child Track. In the Adult Track, there are Fellowships in the: Addiction Institute of New York; Center for Intensive Treatment of Personality Disorders; Psychiatric Recovery Center; and the Adult Outpatient Clinic. In the Child Track, there are Fellowships in: CARES, Outpatient Dialectical Behavior Therapy Program/Inpatient, and Parent Infant Center-. Please contact the Director, Psychology Education and Training, or the Director, Child and Adolescent Psychology Education and Training to learn more about these.

On all of the rotations, as well as in the Adult and Child Outpatient Psychiatric Clinics, consultation is an aspect of the interns' clinical experience. In the process of implementing treatment plans, coordinating services for patients with complex problems, interns routinely consult with (psychiatric, social service, case management, medical and other) providers from community-based social service agencies, foster care agencies, hospitals, schools, universities, criminal justice agencies, and other facilities. The Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Health Consultation-Liaison Services, for adults and children, are potential sites for interns to participate in consultation, as part of a team (with attending psychiatrists and psychiatry residents). Due to the already full-time workload of the interns, interns do not currently rotate into this service. However, optional opportunities, to join the Clinic for Patients in Transition, the Psychiatric ER (CPEP), and the Consultation-Liaison teams for mini-rotations, are available should the intern and the Training Director agree that they have sufficient time to do so.

The Mount Sinai Morningside and Mount Sinai West are home for an active complement of training faculty engaged in clinical research. These typically include: trials of behavioral and/or pharmacologic approaches to substance use and other psychiatric disorders; and trials of novel behavioral therapies for adults and children with a broad range of mental and physical health problems. Due to the already full-time workload of the interns, interns do not currently rotate into research projects. However, evidence-based intervention and assessment, empirically-validated psychological theory, and methods of scientific inquiry and analysis are central components of our supervision, didactics and services. As interns are frequently in the process of completing dissertations, attention is devoted to discussion of interns' dissertation research, to on-site resources (e.g., SPSS-equipped computers, library), and to strategies for solving dissertation issues. Interns who have completed dissertations may be interested in optional participation in research. Interns are encouraged to use faculty as mentors, in completing their research, or in exploring limited participation in research—should the intern and the Training Directors, or Associate Training Director and the researcher agree that the intern has sufficient time to do so.