BUCC Doctoral Internship Program Earns Accreditation by the American Psychological Association

The Baylor University Counseling Center (BUCC) recently achieved a milestone for its doctoral internship program, when the American Psychological Association announced the accreditation of the program.

"We have been talking about this and working steadily toward it for years,” said Dr. James G. Marsh, executive director of Counseling Services. “This accreditation is instrumental for our program.”

In the U.S., every candidate for a PhD or PysD in clinical or counseling psychology is required to complete a year-long internship once doctoral coursework is finished. Accredited internships are competitive and attract top talent, according to Dr. Randal W. Boldt, supervising psychologist, assistant director and training director at the Counseling Center. Accreditation requires that programs develop a rigorous and well-defined model of training for doctoral candidates that is measured against a lengthy set of training standards. It is a multi-step process that begins with accreditation and continues through long-term assessment of internship outcome.

The BUCC has supported two groups of doctoral interns since the program’s founding in August 2015 and will welcome a third at the end of this summer. Interns work full time for one year to complete a 2,000-hour internship, which includes 500 hours of direct, clinical intervention. Weekly, they receive four hours of supervision and between two and four hours of academic training. Interns also attend regular diversity seminars where they enhance their multicultural competencies.

“We are pouring into the interns while they’re here, continually,” Boldt said. “They get a lot of support, experiences and education to help them grow.”

Investing time and resources into training and supervising doctoral interns benefits Baylor students engaged in therapy at the Counseling Center. Highly trained interns, supervised by licensed psychologists, lead individual and group therapy, walk-in clinics and consultations.

“Students who come in say they enjoy great service from our doctoral interns,” Boldt said. “They are very complimentary of our interns, who are energetic, engaged and do a fantastic job. Interns, themselves, also provide regular feedback to the Counseling Center staff. It gives us a chance to really see ourselves and improve — continuous feedback and continuous improvement.”

To date, two doctoral interns have completed the program each year since 2015. The accreditation, along with additional physical space in the Counseling Center’s new Dutton Avenue facility and the hiring of additional staff, will allow the Center to accept four interns in August 2018.

Baylor’s is one of only a handful of Christian-oriented internships in the nation and BUCC competes for the nation’s top interns among other institutions of higher education, hospitals, federal prisons, military settings and community mental health centers. One distinguishing characteristic of the program is the awareness of faith folded into practice as interns work with clients. Another unique aspect of this program is that doctoral interns provide two hours of supervision to practicum students — graduate students who are in the earlier, coursework phase of their learning.

“These doctoral graduates are about to go into the world, so we give them every experience we can provide, in a supervised setting, so they can spread their wings,” Boldt said.