Postdoctoral Training Program in Professional Psychology
Program Overview
Program Philosophy and Values
Our Postdoctoral Training Program in Professional 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.