About the Program

Successful completion of this fellowship program requires at least 2000 postdoctoral hours to be completed in no more than 12 months. A minimum of 60% of the fellow’s time will be spent providing direct clinical services.

Minimum qualifications of applicants must include all of the following (prior to the start of the fellowship):

  1. Doctoral degree in clinical or counseling psychology from an APA accredited program;
  2. Successful completion of an APA accredited psychology internship,
  3. Strong diagnostic skills including experience with assessments and psychological testing; and
  4. Experience providing evidence-based treatments to adults.

Fellows are hired with the job title “Postdoctoral Research Fellow.” Currently there are eleven full-time, licensed clinical psychologists at UTHealth-BSC, one of whom is the Chief of Psychology Services who serves as the point of contact and directly oversees the psychology postdoctoral fellowship training program.

  • Deliver brief, evidence-based individual and group psychotherapies to adult patients with diverse clinical presentations, including serious mental illness (SMI) and co-occurring disorders.
  • Demonstrate advanced proficiency in psychological evaluations, including cognitive, personality, and response-style assessments to inform treatment planning and clinical decision-making.
  • Apply individualized responsive practices and adapt interventions to meet the needs of various patient populations.
  • Provide developmentally appropriate, tiered supervision and feedback to practicum students, predoctoral interns, and psychiatry residents, under the guidance of licensed psychologists.
  • Function effectively as a consultant within multidisciplinary treatment teams by providing psychological expertise, treatment recommendations, and education to colleagues.
  • Consistent with the practitioner-scholar model, engage in clinical research and curate at least one scholarly product by year-end.
  • Apply APA Ethical Principles and state licensure laws, by engaging in ethical and professional behavior, accurately representing trainee status and supervisory relationships, and progressively developing autonomy and readiness for independent practice through reflective self-assessment, supervision integration, and professional growth.
  • Meet the postdoctoral requirement for licensure as a psychologist in Texas
  • Our model of training is developmental in that licensed faculty meet fellows where they are and provide the necessary scaffolding, education, training, and feedback to support the fellow in meeting their clinical training objectives and goals, as well as professional development. This model involves the fellow initially observing various team members and faculty while they facilitate a range of services.

    Next, fellows co-lead and lead those observed services and receive feedback on their performance for knowledge/skill development. Feedback provided to fellows is intended to help them grow and develop; as such, it is important for the supervisee to apply the feedback in subsequent sessions. If the fellow is not clear on how to improve based on feedback provided, it is important to discuss this with the supervisor who provided the feedback. It is the responsibility of the supervisor to teach and train; it is the responsibility of the fellow trainee to be active in their learning.

    Prior to being permitted to provide services autonomously with licensed supervision, the fellow will conduct a Stanely-Brown safety plan and a Choice Point safety plan with a licensed psychologist observer for “check off.” Getting checked off on safety plans is the primary measure for autonomous service provision on the general clinical service under the supervision of a licensed psychologist. From this point forward, if the fellow encounters any intervention or treatment plan that is outside their level of competence, the fellow should communicate this with the supervisor to ensure proper scaffolding is provided. Though licensed supervisors are physically located across two buildings, they can be easily contacted via Epic chat, phone, and email.