Compentency Areas

Individual/Marital/Family Counseling and Psychotherapy Competency

Interns maintain a client caseload of 8-12 clients each week during the academic year. The interns' caseload will be diverse in terms of presenting concerns as well as cultural backgrounds of the clients. Because the Counseling Center is the primary mental health provider for students in an area that is resource-poor in terms of state services, the services are free for the students. Accordingly, the Center follows a brief therapy model and clients have a limited number of sessions available for individual, conjoint/family, or group therapy services.

Interns are able to conduct marital and/or family counseling and are required to meet with a minimum number of couples/families during the internship year.  Depending upon the interns' prior training background, the intern may work alone, with another intern, or with a professional staff member in providing the couples/family therapy.

Interns are expected to do one formal case presentation to the Center staff of their work with an individual, couple or family during the fall semester of their internship.  Informal case presentations occur throughout the internship in the various seminars and clinical meetings.

Psychological Assessment Competency

Interns will have the opportunity to practice, enhance and master their skills in objective and projective personality assessment, intelligence testing, career assessment, and other instruments commonly used in clinical practice (e.g., Beck Depression Inventory II). Assessment is defined as the entire process involved in collecting quantitative (e.g., tests and measures) and qualitative (e.g., clinical interview) information, the interpretation and report writing, communicating the results to the client and using that information as a therapeutic intervention.

Specifically, interns will be expected to administer a minimum of five Myers-Briggs Type Indicators, ten MMPI-2, two WAIS-III, and five other objective clinical or personality measures of the interns' choice.  Projective measures are optional and not a specific requirement of the assessment competency. 

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Intake Interviewing Competency

Interns will be provided training in conducting the interviews during the initial orientation to the internship and will have multiple opportunities to conduct intake interviews. Ongoing individual supervision will be provided throughout the year so interns can master their skills in conducting the intake interview, obtaining enough information for an initial diagnostic assessment, triaging client concerns, and determining client disposition (in addition to being knowledgeable about potential referral sources for additional services).  Interns are required to have two intakes observed (live or recorded) by their individual supervisor during the course of each semester.

Crisis Intervention Competency

Interns are actively involved in the crisis services provided to the university faculty, staff, and students and this is a major component of the internship experience at NMSU. Interns are expected to rotate (every third week when classes are conducted) in sharing crisis intervention responsibilities for the residential housing staff and students on campus. Additionally, interns, like all professional staff members, will be assigned a block of time during the week (8 a.m.-noon or 1-5 p.m.) to be available for on-call services for the Center.

Group Counseling Competency

Group counseling is viewed as an extremely effective means of addressing interpersonal, intrapsychic, and familial concerns. In fact, group therapy might be the primary treatment of choice for a number of our client's presenting concerns. A requirement of this competency is that interns co-facilitate either a process or structured group with a professional staff member, during both the fall and spring academic semesters.

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Outreach Competency

During the orientation to the internship, interns will receive training in the creation, design, and presentation of outreach programs that are often requested within the campus environment, including the ropes team course. Additionally, interns will attend a weekly Outreach/Consultation Seminar that will facilitate the development of original outreach programming and provide an opportunity to receive feedback on presentation skills. The Seminar will provide an opportunity for interns to debrief about their outreach experiences and address ways of conducting program evaluation.  For this competency, interns are required to facilitate a minimum of nine outreach presentations during the course of the internship year.

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Consultation Competency

A highlight of the training program is the goal of encouraging social responsibility and social action among staff and trainees. While individual counseling services provide many opportunities for facilitating change, we also believe that professionals must be willing to go beyond the comforts of the office or Center. Interns will be creating a consultation project during the year that focuses on social action, responsibility, justice, or advocacy in order to address environmental and systemic means of facilitating change within the university setting. Additionally, interns will serve as consultants to the Housing and Residential Life staff on an as-needed basis throughout the internship year. This might consist of training the resident advisors on various mental health topics or providing consultation regarding concern over a particular resident's behavior. The possibility exists for both requirements to be met within one project: consulting with Housing and Residential Life staff or residents on a social action issue that initiates environmental change.  Interns are also required to do one group consultation project during the spring semester that is on a social action/justice issue on campus.

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Multicultural Awareness Competency

Because of being committed to meeting the needs of culturally diverse students/clients, staff and faculty, the training program focuses on how practitioners address and integrate multicultural awareness in counseling/psychotherapy, outreach and consultation, assessment practices, supervision, and staff development. We recognize that interns as well as professional staff go through an ongoing developmental process in gaining awareness, knowledge and skills in multiculturalism. A Multicultural Counseling/Diversity Seminar is offered once a week throughout the academic year and provides knowledge and skill training, as well as a supportive environment within which to reflect, examine, challenge and express one's beliefs and perspectives.  An expectation of the competency is that interns have a minimum of 30% of their clinical (includes therapy clients, outreach/consultation recipients) caseload consist of client of identified minority status.  Additionally, interns are required to do case presentations in the fall and spring semesters of the Multicultural Seminar.

Supervision Competency

As a Center and training program, we have a strong commitment to providing quality therapeutic experiences for our student clients and to the university as a whole as well as providing quality developmentally-based doctoral practicum/masters internship supervision to the Counseling and Educational Psychology Department students. For predoctoral interns, our philosophy is to assist interns in their development as future trainers and supervisors in the theory and application of clinical supervision. Throughout the fall and spring semesters, interns will attend the Supervision Seminar where there will be didactic instruction and discussion on theories of supervision and relevant research. The majority of the time in the seminar will be devoted to case presentation of and consultation pertaining to supervision sessions. In the fall semester, interns will be assigned supervisory responsibility for either an individual supervisee or to assist in the supervision of the doctoral practicum students when they conduct the professional development growth groups for the master's students minimum requirement of 8-15 hours of providing supervision).  In the spring semester, interns will be assigned to supervise a masters-level intern of doctoral practicum student for a minimum of 15 supervision sessions.  A final requirement is that each intern give a formal case presentation of their work with a supervisee during the spring semester of the Supervision Seminar.

The supervision  competency covers not only the interns' provision of supervision to the doctoral students or masters' interns but also the intern's orientation toward receiving supervision as well. This aspect of the competency addresses the intern's professional behavior in the supervision they receive including:

►openness to feedback and readiness to learn
►willingness to show one's work in supervision and seminars
►ability to initiate addressing needs on a session-by session basis in supervision
►receptivity to self-examination as relevant to one's professional work with not only clients but also in the other professional roles they assume
►Being willing to self-reflect and identify areas of strength as well as growth areas that lead to goals for the supervision experience
►an ability to recognize when to consult (self-supervisory capability)
►being able to appropriately express concerns directly with a supervisor and provide relevant feedback

Inters are required to receive a minimum of 30 individual supervision sessions during each semester (fall and spring) and 24 during the summer months.

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Professional/Ethical Behavior Competency  

An expectation of the training program is that interns conduct themselves in a professional and ethical manner. As a staff, we have the perspective that our work with clients is complex and can be ethically challenging at times. Accordingly, we strive to create a work atmosphere that is supportive as well as a place where we can obtain objective feedback regarding ethical dilemmas. We want interns to be knowledgeable about professional/ethical/legal issues within the field. This competency addresses the intern's ability to be autonomous while recognizing when to consult with others, and able to express their professional identity. Interns should be able to be an effective and integral member of the staff. This includes an ability to be a team member, to work well with other professionals and communicate openly with coworkers when differences arise. Interns are expected to maintain up-to-date clinical records and other agency paperwork and information compilation demands. The minimal requirements needed to complete this competency is the intern receives ratings of "3" (good skills) or "4" (superior skills) on the evaluation form for the professional/ethical section.