Doctoral Psychology Internship

Alex Cogswell.

Alex Cogswell, PhD, training director.

Our psychology doctoral internship program, supported by the Patrick Lee Foundation, provides you with a one-year, full-time training opportunity that allows you to transition between doctoral study and your chosen career.

Our program offers the capstone experience in doctoral psychology. We are  fully accredited through the American Psychological Association.

We give you in-depth clinical training with a focus on serious mental illness. Our program’s two tracks share three overarching goals:

  1. Prepare you for a career as a psychologist in a variety of academic, clinical and research settings in both the public and private sectors.
  2. Provide you with the foundation to become an expert in understanding and treating mental illnesses, including psychotic, affective and anxiety disorders.
  3. Provide you with advanced training in assessment, diagnosis and evaluation, as well as exposure to numerous intervention and treatment modalities.
  • Curriculum
    10/19/22
    Our internship program — designed on the practitioner-scholar model — gives you a smooth transition from doctoral study to your chosen career. Our program includes two tracks, one with a focus on a Developmental Approach to Mental Illness, the other with a focus on Substance Use and Mental Illness.
  • Developmental Track
    10/25/22
    You will work closely with attending psychologists and/or psychiatrists who provide expert clinical and administrative supervision.
  • Substance Use Track
    10/19/22
    Interns will complete three year-long experiences, constituting the Substance Use Track’s Core Program. Two of these experiences are fixed, Inpatient Withdrawal and Stabilization, and the Outpatient Substance Use Treatment services programs.
  • Training Sites
    10/19/22
    Our Developmental Track interns have year-long responsibilities in the Children’s Psychiatry Clinic, the On Track early psychosis program, and Erie County Medical Center’s psychiatric inpatient program. Our Substance Use Track interns have year-long responsibilities in Inpatient Withdrawal and Stabilization and Outpatient Substance Use Treatment services. In addition to year-long experiences, interns individualize their training through choice of other training rotations.
  • Faculty
    3/15/23
    Our psychologists, supervisors, teachers, administrators, clinicians and researchers all contribute to and are active participants within the internship program.
  • Apply
    10/17/23
    We can accept two interns into our Developmental Track, and two in our Substance Use Track.
  • Policies and Procedures Manual
    8/24/23
    Below is the doctoral psychology internship policies and procedures manual.
  • Trainee Admissions, Support, and Outcome Data
    9/13/23
    Date Program Tables are updated: Sept. 1, 2023

A Beautiful, Vibrant Living Community

  • Buffalo is known for its snow, but dig a little deeper and you’ll discover that our region enjoys four distinct seasons.

    Our region is characterized by a neighborly way of life, an unpretentious nature and spirited loyalty among residents.

    Get past the snowy stereotype and you’ll be immediately captivated by Buffalo’s beauty, heritage, temperate climate and welcoming environment.

Diversity

The University at Buffalo Department of Psychiatry is deeply committed to fostering multicultural competence and diversity awareness and appreciation. The primary mission of all of our training activities is to develop interns that have expertise in using a developmental approach to understanding and treating psychopathology. We take seriously the need to remain sensitive in all clinical work to diversity and individual differences. In doing so, we define diversity factors broadly, including but not limited to differences in race, ethnicity, religion, sexual orientation, gender identity, disability status, nationality, and primary language.

The program engages in an ongoing process of improvement with regard to multicultural competence and diversity. In addition to informal discussions among training faculty and interns, we also rely upon formal consultation and involvement in our Psychiatry Department’s Diversity Committee. This committee is made up of psychologists, psychiatrists, and staff who are tasked with evaluating and improving the Department’s and its programs’ commitment to developing increased awareness, knowledge, and skills to work with our highly diverse patient population. This departmental committee also maintains a key role in informing searches for new faculty and staff hires. Another notable formal activity is consultation with our Internship program’s Diversity Committee, made up of faculty and trainees. This committee is tasked in part with conducting ongoing evaluation of the program’s environment, and its related efforts to attract, support, and retain diverse trainees. Interested interns are invited to serve as Diversity Committee members for their internship training year.

The internship program offers a didactics program that includes some diversity-specific topics, and encourages faculty to infuse diversity discussion into all educational sessions. Two of the regular diversity-specific activities are a monthly Journal Club, which is led by either faculty or trainees, and involves reading and discussing articles that have diversity as a primary content area. The second series is focused on structural competency, and involves both traditional didactics, as well as immersion and experiential activities in the community. Outside of the didactic program, interns are engaged in individual and group supervision, where faculty are actively encouraged to incorporate discussion of diversity factors in developing case conceptualizations, and conducting formal assessment and psychotherapy.

The University at Buffalo Department of Psychiatry serves children, adults, and families from a highly diverse area, including the city of Buffalo, its surrounding suburbs, and more remote rural locations. The city of Buffalo and its surrounding suburbs are highly diverse, which allows for our trainees to have opportunities to provide services to patients from a wide variety of backgrounds, including populations that are typically grossly underserved. In working with a very diverse patient population in a diverse community, supplemented with the various educational activities offered by the program, we aim to help interns develop their appreciation of diversity broadly defined, and their ability to work with individuals and families in ways that are culturally competent.

Contact

Training Director

Cogswell, Alex

Alex Cogswell, PhD

Associate Professor / Training Director of Psychology Doctoral Internship

The Children‘s Psychiatry Clinic 1028 Main Street Buffalo, NY 14202

Phone: (716) 859-5484; Fax: 716 859-5585

Email: alexcogs@buffalo.edu

Program Administrator

Julie L. Mikula

Program Administrator

Erie County Medical Center, 462 Grider Street, Buffalo, NY 14215

Phone: (716) 898-3597; Fax: (716) 898-4538

Email: juliemik@buffalo.edu