Clinical and Counselling Psychology Internship Program (Hospital/ Clinic) @ SoftMind

Eligibility: Graduates or Post-graduates in Psychology/Social Work are eligible to apply for our Internship Program.
Duration: 1-3 months
Locations: Kochi, Calicut, and Kannur
Time commitment required: 20 h/week

We receive a large number of applications for our Internship Program as it is a highly sought-after one. These applications are mainly from candidates who want to gain work experience in a psychological therapy clinic. This Internship is a mutually beneficial program wherein you will gain valuable experience while simultaneously helping us out with important tasks at the clinic.

The role

By doing the Internship, you can gain training and experience in the 2 main therapy models – CBT and Solution Focused Brief Therapy. You will have to provide clients with psychological therapy using evidence-based techniques and conduct psychological assessments. This will help you gain invaluable face-to-face experience and function as per the gold standard protocol.

As a Junior Therapist, your role will involve encouraging those individuals interested in therapy to engage with the services we offer. You will also be responsible for helping them receive the best quality service from the clinic.

You will be responsible for guiding people to the appropriate therapy for which you will be given the necessary training. During the course of the internship program, you will have to interact with people who may have depression, anxiety, eating disorders, relationship issues, low self-esteem and other conditions.

Your Duties

• Administration tasks including answering phone calls and replying to emails, particularly in relation to guiding people to the most-suited therapy for them.
• Provide face-to-face 15 min screening assessments.
• Provide therapy for 1-3 clients/week
• One number group clinical supervision training session once every two weeks. Typically, these sessions will have to be done within a 1-h break. We make a payment for the supervision but we will not pay for your time in attending this training.

Benefits 

• Attend CBT group supervision teaching sessions along with RCI-licensed clinical/rehabilitation psychologists
• Hospital and clinical experience
• Access to affordable 1-on-1 clinical supervisors when you start seeing 1-on-1 clients

Administrative Work Involved

As an intern, you will be trained to speak with different new clients who may call or send an email on a daily basis. This conversation can happen ad hoc or via our scheduled15-min free telephone consultation.

When client calls come in you are expected to present yourself in a professional manner, representative of a private clinic, and also ensure to exude warmth and a comforting demeanour, representative of a therapeutic clinic. This duality is of utmost importance, as you will be the first point of contact for new enquiries through telephone calls and emails. Many of these individuals would have mental health issues that are turning to us for help.

You are expected to extend an empathetic role over the phone. However, sometimes, the calls can be those individuals wanting to know some information about assessments or about how the therapy sessions are conducted. You are required to possess exemplary listening skills.

After you have understood our systems, you are expected to book those clients who want to meet the senior psychiatrists, psychologists and psychotherapists and link them to the correct practitioner. You will gain this expertise through the training we provide to you. Your training manager will also help you in this regard during the training period.

Existing Clients

A large portion of your training time will be spent speaking to our existing clients. This may involve administrative tasks such as rescheduling, setting up or cancelling appointments, handling complaints and general queries, etc.

Clinical work

*Seeing Clients

This is one of the most serious tasks that we assign to our interns, and always after a lot of deliberation. It is not a guarantee that we would allow every intern to see clients. It is decided on a case-by-case basis.

We offer a low-cost therapy service at the clinic, which is provided by psychological counsellors. Thus we never turn away anyone who requires therapy. As an intern, if you are already registered with a professional body or are able to do so then, you will be provided with the chance of seeing clients face-to-face.

Supervision

If you are given the role of seeing clients, you will be required to pick a supervisor who will assist you during your client interactions. You can select a supervisor from our internal practitioner team if they agree.

We also offer group supervision responsibility for which you can discuss the cases with your peers and also with a senior therapist. You are expected to read and improve your knowledge of CBT and other psychotherapeutic methods.

How we can ensure you get face-to-face time with a client through this program:

• We will first create a junior therapist profile for you
• You can join us as a junior therapist, forming a part of our affordable therapy team
• We provide on-the-job training to become a highly effective junior therapist (Therapist in training) and psychological practitioner

How to apply

In order to apply for the internship program, you are required to fill in the application and attach a copy of your CV.

Teaching/ Practical sessions included in the internship

• Basic CBT
• CBT for depression, panic disorder, health anxiety, social anxiety
• Psychological assessments
• Formulations
• Intro to evidence-based psychotherapy
• Mindfulness
• Schema-Focused Training
• The therapeutic relationship
• Managing endings with Clients
• Psychological assessment practice
• Core Belief
• CBT for phobias, OCD, PTSD, GAD, low self-esteem
• CTSR manual
• Using EMDR
• DBT and borderline personality disorder
• Working with anger
• Candidate 1. presenting a topic of interest
• Candidate 2. presenting a topic of interest
• Candidate 3. presenting a topic of interest
• Working with transference
• Using role-plays with clients and the empty chair technique
• Motivational interviewing
• Working with jealousy
• Assertiveness training
• Socratic questioning/guided discovery
• Thought records – Covered
• Working with mild ASD
• Transactional analysis
• Cognitive analytic therapy (CAT)
• Client role plays
• DSM diagnosis
• Working with ADHD
• Couples Therapy