Connecticut Mental Health Center

Facility Overview

The Connecticut Mental Health Center (CMHC) provides comprehensive behavioral health services in the Greater New Haven area. The Center, which is part of the State of Connecticut’s system of behavioral healthcare, is managed by faculty from the Yale Department of Psychiatry, including a large number of faculty psychologists. The services offered by the CMHC include: initial clinical evaluation and assessment; crisis intervention; outreach and engagement; short-term inpatient care; brief and continuing individual, family, couples, and group psychotherapy on an outpatient basis; rehabilitation; community-based consultation; program evaluation; and prevention.

In addition to these services, there is a broad array of ongoing research projects sponsored by the clinical, consultation, and basic science units at the CMHC. The opportunities for clinical training and research experience at the Connecticut Mental Health Center are rich and varied.

Internship Placements

Nine training options, listed below, are available as placements within the CMHC; 8 of these may be selected as primary placements. Most fellows have a primary placement (3 days/week) and a secondary placement (1½ days/week). The remaining half-day is reserved for the internship Core Seminar and placement based seminars. Within the time allocation for the primary placement, a half-day per week is protected for a scholarly activity.

Placement at one of CMHC’s clinical treatment units, such as the CMHC Inpatient Unit, Adult Community Mental Health Services, the Hispanic Clinic, the Substance use Treatment Unit, the West Haven Mental Health Clinic, and the Young Adult Service, provides fellows with the opportunity for enhancing clinical skills through supervised treatment and assessment.

Depending on the placement site, fellows work with children, adolescents, adults, couples, families, or groups in treatment and have the opportunity to work with individuals who have a range of psychiatric diagnoses, including primary or co-occurring addiction disorders.

Training at The Consultation Center provides an opportunity to focus on a range of community-based services, including prevention, health education and promotion, organizational and systems consultation, program evaluation, and staff development training, as well as related prevention, program evaluation, and services research.

Secondary placements are a rich opportunity to gain additional exposure and experience in another domain of interest. Certain CMHC placement sites are eligible for a secondary placement. Prospective applicants should refer to the placement grid for more information about which sites are eligible for secondary placements. Applicants will have an opportunity to rank their secondary placement preferences and learn more about secondary placements on interview day. Secondary placement assignments will be made after match day, taking into consideration applicant preferences.

Note: When applying to the Young Adult Services, the secondary placement is automatically the Child & Adolescent Services placement. Thus, trainees matched to the Young Adult Services site will not follow this process.”

Diversity

Developing an understanding of the issues and competencies related to diversity in clinical and community practice and research is central to the education within the CMHC. For several decades, placement sites within the CMHC have been leaders in integrating culture, diversity, and inclusion into the internship for doctoral psychology fellows through formal placement-based seminars and supervised experiences. The varied CMHC placement sites provide unparalleled opportunities for training in clinical, consultative, or research experiences with diverse populations by gender, gender identity, race, ethnicity, social class, religion, physical and mental ability, age, sexual orientation, immigration status, and linguistic ability. Fellows will also benefit from the Concentration on Culture and Diversity within the training program.

Supervision

Fellows within the Connecticut Mental Health Center have a Primary Advisor who has overall responsibility for the training experience and mentoring of the fellow. Secondary Advisors guide the training experience for fellows in secondary placements. Additional supervision is provided by full time faculty and voluntary clinical faculty.

Seminars

All fellows participate in the internship’s weekly core seminar. In addition, most CMHC placements have one or more site-based seminars or specialized training sessions designed to support the experiential learning within the placement. These educational offerings are tailored to the populations served and services provided within the placement.