Education & Training

Education and training is a critical mission at the Yale Medical School and the Psychology Section fulfills this mission through a wide array of training experiences in psychology in diverse settings at the Yale Medical School and its affiliated institutions. This mission is being carried out by 88 full time faculty psychologists within the Department of Psychiatry and an additional 109 psychologists serving in part-time clinical faculty roles.

We offer two separate Doctoral Internship Programs, one within the Department of Psychiatry with placements at Yale-New Haven Hospital and the Connecticut Mental Health Center, and the other at the Veterans Administration Medical Center. Both programs provide broad clinical training experiences within numerous specialty placements focusing on serious and persistent mental illness, substance abuse and addictive behaviors, clinical health psychology and behavioral medicine, neuropsychology, psychosocial rehabilitation, and PTSD. Highly specialized research and clinical post-doctoral experiences are offered throughout the department and its affiliated institutions.

A large proportion of the faculty psychologists contribute to these training experiences as advisors, supervisors, seminar leaders, and lecturers. In addition, the psychology faculty are involved in lectures, workshops and clinical supervision in diverse interdisciplinary settings throughout the medical school. As a group, psychologists within the Department of Psychiatry are passionate about training the next generation of psychologists and are considered by doctoral fellows to be nurturing and caring mentors.

Yale Doctoral Internship in Clinical & Community Psychology

Since 1970, the Psychology Section of the Yale Department of Psychiatry has offered an APA-accredited Doctoral Internship in Clinical and Community Psychology. This highly competitive internship selects over 15 graduate students annually from among the best candidates in United States and other countries. Experiential training is combined with classroom learning, protected time for scholarship, and exceptional supervision and mentoring to create an internship that is highly rated by students and by the graduate school faculty members who encourage their students to apply. Students select from over a dozen diverse training placements to meet their learning needs.

VA Connecticut Psychology Internship Program

The VA Connecticut Healthcare System - West Haven Campus (VACHS) offers healthcare services to a diverse population of veterans in a wide range of healthcare delivery settings. The VA Connecticut Psychology Internship Program experience varies depending on the training track and the interests of the intern.

Post-Doctoral Training Opportunities

Numerous psychology postdoctoral fellowships are available within the Yale School of Medicine and Yale affiliated institutions. These are typically full-time and range from one to two years in length. Recent postdoctoral fellowships within the Medical Center have focused on the prevention and treatment of substance abuse, serious mental illnesses, homelessness, and eating disorders. A large number of postdoctoral fellowships are also available at the Yale-affiliated VA Connecticut Healthcare System located nearby in West Haven, Connecticut.