Psychology Internship Training Program

The West Virginia University School of Medicine and affiliated health care system serves as West Virginia’s preeminent academic medical institution and largest healthcare provider. Our Clinical Psychology Internship Training Program, emphasizes broad training in health service psychology with areas of emphasis in behavioral medicine, pediatrics, and in neuropsychology within an academic medical center. Our goal is to prepare interns to be successful in the evolving field of psychology/healthcare for careers in a variety of settings, including medical or academic medical centers, university psychology departments, and clinical settings that offer inpatient and/or psychological outpatient services. Our program is based on the scientist-practitioner model of training, emphasizing evidence-based primarily cognitive-behavioral approaches to assessment and intervention. Our faculty are dedicated to training and we follow a junior-colleague model of supervision. 

To achieve these goals, we emphasize a comprehensive approach to training across clinical work, didactics, and research. Our program offers a breadth of experiences with opportunities for clinical rotations in a number of settings including outpatient behavioral health, medical specialty and subspecialty clinics, primary care, and VA settings  

Interns will gain clinical experience with patients across the lifespan representing a broad range of presenting problems in both inpatient and outpatient treatment settings. Our clinical rotations allow interns to hone generalist skills, but also offer specialization.  

We are committed to developing an individualized and tailored training experience for the intern. We have three interns annually: one in adult clinical health, one in child pediatric, and one in neuropsychology.  Interns do not have to compete for training experiences and we have flexibility in scheduling to ensure that interns receive well-rounded training while having the opportunity to identify an area of emphasis in their training  

We offer one internship position in each of the following training tracks:

• Clinical Health Psychology (APPIC Code #163913)
• Emphasis Areas: Bariatrics, Transplant

• Neuropsychology (APPIC Code #163914)

• Child/Pediatric Psychology (APPIC Code #163911) 
• Emphasis Areas: Child Clinical, Pediatrics, Neurodevelopment

Our internship program offers training in a variety of domains including: 

• Intervention: Interns are provided individual supervision to improve their skills in the provision of psychological treatments. We emphasize the use of evidence-based treatments and offer supervision in comorbid medical and psychological conditions.
• Assessment: Assessment is a focus in each major rotation. Specialty experience in neuropsychological assessment (e.g. ALS, movement disorders, FMD), neurodevelopmental assessment, pre-surgical bariatric evaluations, opioid risk evaluations, pre-transplant evaluation are available. 
• Health Psychology/Behavioral Medicine: We offer a variety of behavioral medicine rotations with adults and children including, but not limited to, bariatric surgery, medical weight management, chronic pain evaluations, integrated primary care, sleep medicine, pediatric subspecialty clinics, adolescent medicine, psychiatry consultation and liaison, substance use, and rotations at VAMC Clarksburg.
• Primary Care: We provide a number of unique training opportunities within our primary care setting including integrated Behavioral Health Services as well as specialty clinics (Integrated Diabetes Clinic, Weight Management Clinic) and family medicine inpatient and discharge rounds.
• Multidisciplinary Teams/ Interdisciplinary Systems: Many rotations include training in team-based care. Supervision is provided to address the unique skill set involved in working in teams.
• Training in Supervision: Experiences are available to provide supervision to clinical psychology practicum students in a variety of different rotation settings. 
• Didactics: Interns participate in year-long didactics related to their emphasis area. Interns participate in weekly seminars on topics related to evidence-based clinical practice, such as Program Evaluation, Supervision, Professional Development, Research Outcomes, and Cultural Diversity and Ethics.
• Research: Research is a vital component of the internship year and interns are allotted a ½ day per week protected research time to pursue a research project with a faculty mentor.
• Working with Underserved/ Rural Populations: West Virginia University School of Medicine serves a diverse client base including many patients from rural Appalachia with limited access to care. The catchment area of WVU includes many West Virginia counties that are considered medically underserved areas/ populations with regard to economic barriers and rural status.

See all that WVU and Morgantown has to offer!

Internship Admissions, Support, and Initial Placement Data

COVID-19 Vaccination requirement policy

Virtual Interview Update: Interviewees will be contacted via email by at least the December 15 notification date. We strive to notify applicants as early as possible, usually by the 2nd week in November, as we host December interview dates. Please note that applications for the 3 tracks are reviewed on different timelines, and notification for one track may be earlier/ later than the other.  We invite 12 applicants per day (4 in each track), 48 applicants total. The interview day includes informational presentations, time with current trainees, and individual interviews with track faculty.

2024-25 dates for interviews: December 19, December 20, January 9, and January 10.

All interviews will be virtual.