Clinical and Training Programs Available Through CMHC

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CMHC, Inc. Residency in Psychology:

Philosophy:

CMHC, Inc. believes that the psychologist is the premier discipline providing mental health services. The extensive training in the diagnosis and treatment of mental illness using scientifically informed techniques, complex and tested theories, and confidence in human potential related to the ability to learn (and unlearn) position the doctor of psychology for leadership in the treatment of the mentally ill. While psychologists also contribute to the behavioral aspects of general health, our program seeks to prepare residents to take a leadership position in the rural community and in the multidisciplinary facilities found there.

We envision the resident as training to become a psychologist leader, program coordinator, supervisor and trainer of psychotherapists, protector of the quality of care, and patient advocate and case manager. No resident may be admitted to the post doctoral training program at CMHC, Inc. until they have completed an internship which meets or exceeds national and state standards and they have documented completion of their doctoral program in an appropriate area of psychology from a regionally accredited program in psychology. Satisfactory completion of the CMHC, Inc. residency program meets the requirements for licensure in Missouri and most other jurisdictions. Residents should review the requirements of the states in which they intend to practice for specific details.

Goals & Objectives:

1. Goal: Teach Multidisciplinary Leadership. Objective: Provide training in the supervision of multidisciplinary teams and a wide range of professionals providing psychotherapy and interventions.

Goal: Establish experience and confidence in teaching psychological knowledge to others in order to enhance quality of care. Objective: Provide experience teaching core psychological understandings that can enhance the quality of care at a facility and improve a staff’s understanding of how psychological knowledge can improve treatment outcome.
Goal: Establish the depth of experience to allow the rural psychologist to function as a leader in a variety of settings and patients. Objective: Provide a wide variety of rotations to create sufficient generalist experience so as to allow the resident to provide leadership with a wide range of clinical populations, programs, and facilities so that they may act as a resource to the entire rural community.
Goal: Continue the commitment to research and/or writing. Objective: Provide the resident with the opportunity to continue to mature in the area of research, program evaluation, or therapeutic or diagnostic instrument development.
Goal: Create an appreciation for the needs, want, and philosophies of rural inhabitants. Objective: Provide the resident with the opportunity to become acculturated in the rural environment by spending a year living and working with rural patients in the rural community.
Goal: Provide trained doctors for rural communities. Objective: Graduate 2-4 doctors per year who are competent in providing generalist clinical psychology services to rural communities.

Entrance Requirements:

Applicants should possess a doctorate in clinical, counseling, or family psychology from a regionally accredited educational institution. The program places high emphasis on letters of recommendation, previous health service experience, and specialized certifications showing pre doctoral commitment to learning and the helping professions.

Training Schedule:

Residents should expect to perform 20-35 hours per week of individual, group, family therapy and diagnostic work. The remaining ten hours are spent in supervision, research, teaching, and supervision of others. The resident will rotate in some programs that require weekend or evening hours. Residents must carry a beeper in the on call service approximately 3 days per month.

Title:

CMHC, Inc. uses the term resident to designate the psychology postdoctoral resident. The resident must sign all written material with their name and their discipline (psychology) and title (resident).

Direction, Order, & Control of Cases and Activities of the Resident:

Although Missouri licenses post doctoral residents with a one year provisional license, and they are qualified by state law to diagnose and treat patients independently, they are required by our training program to have all progress notes, written reports, correspondence, and treatment plans co-signed and authorized by their licensed psychology supervisor. All patients are admitted on written order of a faculty supervisor. All treatment plans and treatment plan modifications and discharges are by written order of a faculty supervisor. The supervisor is in control of the treatment of all resident cases.

Training Director:

The Training Director at CMHC, Inc. supervises both the pre doctoral internship and the postdoctoral training programs. The qualifications of the Training Director are described in the internship and residency section of this web site. The Training Director has been on the APA Rural Task Force and was one of the Founding Members of the APA Rural Committee. He has served on the APA Council of Representatives representing a largely rural state, as the President of a rural State Psychological Association, as the director of psychology for rural hospitals and mental health centers, as a Vice President and Director of Training for a rural psychology doctoral training program, and has published books, chapters, and articles related to rural practice.

Faculty:

The faculty is the same as represented in the intern section of this web site.

Rotations:

All rotations required for the pre doctoral internship are required for the postdoctoral resident. In addition, the postdoctoral resident must complete supervision and teaching rotations.

Facilities:

The same facilities described in the pre doctoral internship are utilized in the training of psychology residents.

Supervision:

Each resident will receive a minimum of two hours per week of individual supervision and two hours per week of group supervision and case conferences. In addition, the supervisor will perform periodic co-therapy and co-supervision with the resident. Residents are required to turn in both psychotherapy and supervision tapes for grading.

Didactics:

The resident will attend one 8 hour didactic per month, and will teach assigned didactics.

Graduate Project:

The psychology resident must complete an approved research project, an approved program evaluation, or an approved graduate project. Research projects are dissertation type projects with approved literature review, method and design, data gathering and analysis, and discussion. Program evaluation projects include the development of a faculty approved CMHC, Inc. or community program evaluation design, running the evaluation, and the development of a written report complete with recommendations and data presentations. The graduate project includes the development of an approved theoretical and literature review, the application of theory to the development of a treatment manual or program, and training staff relative to the use of the method and tools developed.

Clinical Notebook:

The clinical notebook contains all the chapters described earlier in the internship section of this web site, and the graduate project, the curriculum and educational objective and handouts and slides related to the teaching assignments, and a section on supervision didactics.

Resident Evaluation:

Residents will be evaluated on a rating format, which is converted to a general grade of excellent, superior, adequate, or inadequate performance based on rotations, the graduate project, instructional presentations, the clinical notebook, assignments, tests, and supervision ratings on responsiveness to supervision and general performance they will be evaluated on a three point Likert scale. Click here to view a detailed description of how residents are evaluated.

Resident Pay:

Residents will be paid between $18,000 and $24,000 depending on previous experience, specialized training, and certifications/licenses. Our pay system is modeled after the generally practiced physician pay system which gives those with subspecialty licenses, certifications, and skills recognized by diverse payer sources to accumulate add on fee based (piece work) income beyond the stipend base. In this way the program carries out its mission of preparing psychologist practitioners for practice, screening out those practitioners who can not deal with the complexities and anxieties of practice (one of which is variable income tied to efficiency, time management, and individual effort and talent), and providing a realistic training/practice experience which differentiates the healthcare practitioner psychologist from the academic or research psychologist. Pay variation, complex and incentive based pay systems designed to motivate and create modicum anxiety, and differential pay which rewards the highly productive (healthcare corporate cultures) are not a part of the usual student’s training and experience with mentors in the academic component of their training. At CMHC, Inc., the professional component of the practitioner psychologist’s training begins to remedy this training deficiency by providing incentive based pay systems for the qualified intern with special skills and credentials so that they will; 1) share in the revenue their extra credentials, experience, and skills create, 2) learn to understand and be efficient in managing incentive based pay systems which dominate healthcare practice today, 3) by providing the program and student with information with regard to the student’s capacity to function as a healthcare practitioner in regard to managing time, productivity, practice organization, multi-facility practice, schedule boundaries, team commitments and responsibilities and their affect on income, and variable income and its effect on personal well being, personal budgets, and anxiety management.

Note: Because of the incentive system, many (but not all) residents at CMHC, Inc. make income substantially above the range posted above!

Due Process, Grievance, and Special Procedures:

The residents will enjoy the same agency special procedures outlined elsewhere in this web site.

Certificate of Completion:

Upon completion of the one year full-time residency in rural clinical psychology the certificate of completion will be awarded. The certificate will include: a) CMHC, Inc. identifiers; b) annotation that a one year 2040 hour post doctoral residency in rural clinical psychology has been completed; c) the beginning and ending dates of the residency; and d) the training director and a senior faculty signature.