Postdoctoral Training Program in Psychology
Program Overview
Program Philosophy and Values
Our
Postdoctoral Training Program in Psychology develops
professional psychologists for leadership roles in education,
research, and clinical service domains. We believe that advanced,
specialized training in psychology is extremely important
for those who seek academic careers or positions of leadership
in clinical and educational settings. We also believe that
individuals with highly developed research and clinical skills
have essential roles to play in the health care arena and
society at large. Thus, our program is structured in keeping
with the scientist-practitioner model.
Our goal is to develop highly trained scientist-practitioners.
Mental health services are undergoing a period of rapid change with increasing requirements for accountability. Existing services need to be better understood and evaluated, new services need to be developed and disseminated and mental health professionals, including psychologists, need to be trained to deliver existing mental health services with the highest possible level of expertise. In addition, our understanding of many types of psychological problems is still severely limited. By structuring our training program to develop strong scientist-practitioners, we are preparing postdoctoral fellows to contribute to our understanding of the etiology, course, and phenomenology of psychological problems; the design, creation, and evaluation of new approaches to psychological problems; the development and training of a new generation of health care providers and researchers; and the implementation of state-of-the-art clinical psychological assessment, evaluation, and intervention services.
Specialty Expertise
Our Postdoctoral Training Program in Professional Psychology
strives to provide each postdoctoral fellow with advanced
training and specialty expertise.
Within the "traditional" practice area of clinical psychology,
there are several formally recognized and emerging specialty
practice areas. In keeping with our departmental and university
strengths in clinical psychological service and research arenas,
we have defined three areas for specialty training within
our postdoctoral program. These are Behavioral Medicine/Health
Psychology, Clinical Child Psychology, and Clinical Neuropsychology.
Each area provides postdoctoral fellows with opportunities
to achieve specialty levels of expertise in psychological
assessment and treatment, to obtain substantial programmatic
research experience, and to integrate clinical and research
training experiences. It is believed that postdoctoral training
is the optimal opportunity to develop the high level of specialty
expertise needed for academic careers or leadership roles
in the health care delivery system. Exit criteria for training
include preparation for eligibility for specialty board certification
through the American Board of Professional Psychology.
Research Training
Our
Postdoctoral Training Program in Professional Psychology has
a strong research component. We
believe that professional psychologists have unique contributions
to make in the areas of critical inquiry, development of conceptual
or theoretical models, research design and implementation,
program evaluation, and interpretation of empirical findings.
We believe that a well-balanced advanced training program
for psychologists must provide substantial training in clinical and research arenas. Faculty psychologists in the Department
of Psychiatry and at the University of Michigan are among
the nation's leaders in research and scholarly contributions
to the mental health field. They are available as role models
and mentors for research training. The structure of our training
program is based on the assumption and belief that involving
postdoctoral fellows in multiple stages of programmatic research
is essential to their development as clinician-scholars and
psychologists.
Interdisciplinary Training
Our
training program strongly values interdisciplinary
training, and reflects the multidisciplinary nature
of the University of Michigan Medical School. It is believed
that the diverse perspectives and teamwork of individuals
representing several professional disciplines contribute to
the training of postdoctoral fellows as well as their eventual
career contributions in educational, research, and clinical
domains. By modeling interdisciplinary cooperation and collaboration,
our teaching faculty strives to develop fellows who understand
their unique contributions to the field and are prepared to
participate in the broader effort to affect positive changes.
Finally, our Postdoctoral Training Program in Professional Psychology strives to facilitate the professional development of each postdoctoral fellow. We believe that some aspects of training are most appropriately individualized and that individualized career advising is essential. Each postdoctoral fellow has unique career aspirations and is at his or her own level of professional development. It is our conviction that this professional development must be nurtured. We believe that this requires facilitation of appropriate opportunities for grant writing, cross-divisional or departmental collaborations, membership in professional organizations, and travel to professional conferences.
