Developmental stresses of psychology internship training: What training staff can do to help.

Abstract

This article, written from the perspective of both a recent intern and an internship director, discusses some of the major stresses of the internship year, including adjusting to a new program, developing a sense of trust in the training staff, questioning one's competence as a psychotherapist, taking risks to learn new skills with different patient groups, accurately assessing one's own strengths and weaknesses, and planning one's life after the internship. The internship year is viewed as part of the professional of clinical psychologists. In this year, interns pass through the stages of a separationindividuation 'process, similar to that described by Mahler and her colleagues. Internship staff members need to be aware of the personal and developmental needs of each intern. Helpful recommendations for training staff during each stage of the intern's development are presented. Although there is a wealth of information in psychology about emotional (Mahler, Pine, & Bergman, 1975), social (Erikson, 1968), cognitive (Piaget, 1952), and moral (Kohlberg, 1969) development, only recently has attention been paid to one's development as a (Hess, 1980; Lewis, 1978; Schuster, Sandt, & Thaler, 1972). During the internship year—a major stage in the life cycle of a clinical psychologist—a sequence of conflicts typically emerges. Viewing psychology interns from a developmental perspective helps the training staff to better understand the intern's experience and to suggest ways in which the staff can respond effectively. Just as parents need to be attuned to their children's developmental needs, supervisors, in general (Friedman & Kaslow, in press), and internship staff members, in particular, can offer more meaningful relationships when they are aware of their interns' and personal stages of development. Erikson (1968), in detailing the stages of the life cycle, described adolescence as the time in the individual's life when the crisis of identity is central. For many psychologists, graduate school represents the prolongation of their personal adolescence, and the internship year often is perceived as a transition period from adolescence to adulthood. One's internship, as with other facets of one's adolescence, is often accompanied by feelings of sturm und drung (Hall, 1905). It is perhaps surprising that the internship year, typically only one fifth of a graduate student's training, holds such significance for the intern. For example, applying for an internship is viewed as such a time of stress that the Survival Guide for Intern Applicants (Belar & Orgel, 1980) has been written. Just as adolescence encompasses that transition from childhood to adulthood, the internship year, for many, is a time of transition from being a student to being a professional. Interns are still in training, yet on most internships they have a good deal of responsibility. Am I just a student or am I a competent who can function independently? is a question interns frequently struggle with. Developmentally, adolescence is also a time when there are so many different demands that the adolescent feels torn in a variety