Training at CCPH
The Center for Counseling and Psychological Health is a clinical training site for graduate students in psychology, social work, and psychiatry. Each year we host roughly ten trainees across six distinct programs, from foundational-year social work interns through fourth-year psychiatry residents and APA-accredited doctoral interns and postdoctoral fellows.
Training at CCPH happens inside an active college mental health center. Trainees see a wide variety of student needs in a stepped-care setting, work on multidisciplinary teams, and develop their professional identity alongside senior clinicians who care about teaching. Our staff is diverse, our orientation is collaborative, and our commitment to the developmental work of training is genuine.
What's Shared Across Every Program
The specifics vary by program, but a few elements are common to every trainee at CCPH:
- Multidisciplinary teams. Trainees are placed on clinical teams that integrate social work, mental health counseling, nursing, psychiatry, and psychology. You learn from clinicians across disciplines, not just within your own field.
- Stepped-care treatment model. CCPH offers a range of care intensities, from single-session consultations and group programming through brief individual therapy and referrals to community providers. Trainees see a wide spectrum of student needs and treatment choices.
- Strong supervision culture. Every trainee has at least one primary supervisor and access to consultation across the senior staff. Supervision is taken seriously, not squeezed between other duties.
- CORI required. Under University of Massachusetts Amherst employment requirements, all training positions are contingent on a successful Criminal Offender Record Information (CORI) check, completed by UMass Human Resources before the start date.
Training Leadership
Each program has a coordinator who manages applications, supervision assignments, and trainee questions. For program-specific questions, contact the coordinator on the relevant subpage:
- Marymar Rivera Castro, Ph.D., Coordinator of Doctoral Psychology Internship Training (Doctoral Internship)
- Christine Catraio, Coordinator of Fellowship Training (Postdoctoral Fellowship and the W.E.B. Du Bois Diversity Fellowship)
- Elle Berch-Heyman, Coordinator of Social Work Training (Social Work Internship)
- Jacob Oyer, MD, Supervisor, Psychiatry Residency Elective (Psychiatry Residency Elective)
For general questions about training at CCPH that aren't program-specific, contact the main CCPH line below.