Past Interns' Consultation Projects
As part of their training, interns complete a special project that involves consultation, outreach, or educational presentations or workshops. Below are listed some of the projects that recent interns have completed.
2011-2012 Interns
Jennings Haynes
“For my consultation project, I worked to draft the Supervision Handbook for Pine Grove Behavioral Health & Addiction Services’ Doctoral Program in Professional Psychology (PG-DIPP). This project was conducted to provide a response to the American Psychological Association’s (APA) request for follow-up information as part of the re-accreditation process which was completed in 2011. The Supervision Handbook contains an outline of requirements and primary responsibilities for supervisors and supervisees. It also delineates the supervisors and the treatment team for each rotation and describes their roles. The handbook contains documents that are required for the supervision process and supplementary materials.”
Lyndsay Henry
“For my consultation project, I completed a Diversity Handbook for Pine Grove Behavioral Health & Addiction Services’ Doctoral Program in Professional Psychology (PG-DIPP). This project was conducted to provide a response to the American Psychological Association’s (APA) request for follow-up information as part of the re-accreditation process which was completed in 2011. The Diversity Handbook contains a written Statement of Diversity, Long Term Diversity Plan, and appendices of references for books, journal articles, and movies related to cultural and individual diversity. The project involved researching the diversity handbooks of other training programs and APA's diversity requirements. I also identified what steps PG-DIPP already utilizes and has implemented and additional steps they will implement to ensure the recruitment and retention of diverse training staff and internship classes and to better train interns in working with diverse populations. The Diversity Handbook is intended to be a flexible and evolving document that PG-DIPP can modify as needed and share with other training programs.”
Christine Profito
“For my consultation project, I organized and edited a master calendar of responsibilities and duties of the Director of Training (DT) for the Pine Grove Behavioral Health & Addiction Services’ Doctoral Program in Professional Psychology (PG-DIPP). I also proposed and drafted a written statement of the current organizational structure of PG-DIPP, options for modifying this structure to increase flexibility and adaptability, and succession plan options in the event the DT, supervisors, or rotations need to be modified or replaced. This project was conducted to help PG-DIPP develop a written Succession Plan in response to American Psychological Association (APA) comments and suggestions during the re-accreditation process which was completed in 2011. The Succession Plan is intended to be a flexible and evolving document that PG-DIPP can modify as needed and share with other training programs.”
2010-2011 Interns
Sandra Grissom, Monica Meyer, and Thelia Robinson
The 2010-11 intern class worked together to complete a consultation project for South Mississippi State Hospital (SMSH). This project was completed under the Director of Training, Dr. Michele Larrow, and involved making two presentations to the staff at SMSH and preparing a handbook.
There is a large population of Vietnamese immigrants who live and work on the Gulf Coast of Mississippi. This population was adversely impacted by the disasters of Hurricane Katrina in 2005 and the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. Following these disasters, there was an increase in Vietnamese immigrants presenting for mental health services at SMSH and the staff members wanted to improve their ability to effectively work with these clients. Interns provided the staff at SMSH with educational presentations on therapeutic work with Vietnamese clients. They made presentations to both the day and the evening staff at SMSH. The interns also prepared an educational handbook for current and future staff members to use working with immigrants from a variety of Asian cultures. These handbooks addressed a variety of cultural and diversity issues including acculturation level, language, customs, assessment of mental health, family involvement, spiritual beliefs, openness to disclosure, and attitudes about mental health.
In addition, the 2010-11 intern class made educational presentations to the clinical staff at Pine Grove. These presentations offered APA-approved continuing education credits for psychologists. Sandra Grissom and Monica Meyer worked together to make a presentation on therapeutic issues related to working with LGBT clients and Thelia Robinson, together with Dr. Larrow, made a presentation on the use of self-compassion and mindfulness in working with clients. Both of the presentations included experiential exercises and participants were provided with relevant literature references.
2009-2010 Interns
Amy Cox
“For my consultation project, I worked with Dr. Paterson to organize and improve the Treatment-Resistant Depression Group. Over the course of the project, I researched and added activities and handouts, and organized new and existing materials into a convenient, portable binder for each client's use in group and at home. I elicited feedback on new activities and handouts from Dr. Paterson and group members.
During the Additions Rotation, I volunteered to do lead three groups that taught mindfulness concepts and provided mindfulness practice. For the first group, I presented a powerpoint lecture that explained the main concepts of mindfulness, including the difference between “doing” and “being” and the four main skills of mindful practice, including awareness, nonjudgmental observation, staying in the moment, and beginner's mind. During this presentation, we did a brief awareness of breath meditation, and a “Thoughts on a Leaf” visualization exercise. The second group consisted of experiential exercises. They included a brief awareness of breath meditation, a Mountain Meditation visualization exercise, a mindfulness walk on the grounds of Gentle Path, and a brief art expression where the patients were encouraged to express artistically what was going on in their minds and body. The third group consisted of a brief review of mindfulness concepts, a prolonged awareness of breath exercise, body scan, and Lake Meditation and visualization exercise.”
Andre Peri
“I completed a consultation project with the Gentle Path program focused on teaching patients mindfulness meditation skills to cope with cravings. As part of the Gentle Path program, patients are required to do complete daily meditations each morning, however, a number of patients did not know how to mediate and requested instructions. Every sixth week, I conducted a hour long lecture in which I provided instructions for meditations and discussed how meditation strengthens the skills of mindfulness which can be used to cope with cravings. These lectures included in vivo brief meditation practice to facilitate learning. Finally, for patients who participated in the Sober Living program at Gentle Path, I conducted weekly 30 minute group sessions which focused on utilizing mindfulness meditation to cope with craving. These sessions focused on rationale for use and practical problem solving on incorporating mindfulness in daily living.”
Christina Williams
“While on the child and adolescent rotation at Pine Belt Mental Healthcare Resources (PBMHR) I provided consultation to a therapist working with a child with Asperger's Syndrome. As this was the PBMHR therapist's first time working with an individual on the Autism Spectrum, I provided consultation by providing resources, engaging in treatment planning meetings, and also conducting co-therapy with the therapist and patient. After collaborating with the PBMHR therapist on case conceptualization, treatment planning, and resources for future sessions, I attended therapy sessions less frequently until eventually phasing myself out of the sessions at the end of the rotation.”
Amy Cox, Andre Peri, and Christina Williams
The three interns and Dr. Michele Larrow, the Director of Training, worked together on a presentation for mental health professionals at Pine Grove. The 2-hour talk was “Psychotherapy as the Intersection of Cultures”. This was a talk that was offered for continuing education for psychologists. Pine Grove Behavioral Health and Addiction Services is approved by the American Psychological Association to sponsor continuing education for psychologists.
2008-2009 Interns
Jude Henningsgaard
Jude did a workshop at Pine Belt Adult Services for Professionals on “Case Management and the Challenges of Working with Personality Disorders (Especially Borderlines)”. Dr. Linda Cox, a psychologist at Pine Belt adult services, supervised this project.
Kelly Leasure
Kelly helped Dr. Craig Paterson, a Psychologist at Pine Grove Outpatient Services, to develop some Cognitive-Behavioral resources for his Chronic Depression group and ran several of the educational sessions of the group.
Regina McConley
Regina completed a research project with Dr. Geralyn Datz in the area of Pain Treatment. She worked with pain patients and did evaluations, completed pain assessments, and collected and helped analyze the data. They presented their research at APA:
Datz, G., McConley, R. L., Payne, K. T., Schenck, J. E., & Suozzi, A. (August, 2009).
Pain catastrophizing predicts post-treatment Pain-Patient Profile ® Scores. Poster presented at American Psychological Association Annual Conference. Toronto, Canada.
2007-2008 Interns
Carrie Swift
“I served as a consultant to area Head Start/Early Head Start agencies. Specifically, I worked with them to increase parent/guardian attendance at staff development workshops. I also provided a three-hour presentation at each of the three staff development workshops they held for the Head Start centers in surrounding counties. The presentations focused on: increasing knowledge about mental health disorders in children, identifying warning signs and symptoms of mental health problems, behavioral interventions that can be used with special needs children, and the association between stress, effective parenting/teaching, and child abuse. My consultation project was a rewarding experience. The teachers, staff, and parents/guardians were very appreciative of the information and resources I provided. In addition, the opportunity allowed me to serve the community and expand my skills as a professional.”
Shannon Sticken
“I spoke with Dr. Stephanie Hillman at Oak Harbor and Clearview Counseling Center to assess what type of services her team would need. Clearview Counseling Center is a 30-day in-patient drug and alcohol treatment facility. Oak Harbor is a residential treatment facility for individuals who are coming out of in-patient treatment – they provide counseling and transitional living. I presented a 2-hour presentation at Oak Harbor on 2 treatment programs that I have worked with (which were substance abuse treatment facilities for adolescents and adults). I also discussed my dissertation in which I created a substance abuse program for high school students. I brought several handouts that I made for all 3 programs, and I discussed different creative activities that involved art and music therapy. I presented for a room of about 15 people. I asked the staff members to complete a survey on how effective and helpful this information was for them. They reported that it was very helpful and some wanted more information on adolescents/adults. This provided me with a great opportunity to get to know others in the community. I really enjoyed working with Dr. Hillman – she is a valuable individual to the recovering community. You will be expected to write a report on your consultation project.”
Leslie Rogers
Leslie worked with Dr. Linda Cox, the Clinical Director at Pine Belt Mental Healthcare Resources on Adult Services, developing professional training for clinicians working in some of the surrounding counties. She also did two training workshops for professionals on Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, including one with Dr. Larrow, the Director of Training. In addition, Leslie presented to a group of police officers on making values-based choices in life.
Shannon Sticken and Carrie Swift
Shannon and Carrie did a presentation for mental health consumers at Pine Belt’s annual consumer conference. Their talk was on Managing Stress and involved both experiential exercises and discussion.
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