Counseling & Psychological Services

The clinical training program at Haverford CAPS includes: Doctoral student externships, Social Work student Internships, and Postgraduate fellowships.

During their placement at Haverford, trainees work with students who are reflective and often well-tuned to notions of psychological causality. The students often eagerly avail themselves of psychotherapy. They also frequently present complicated situations and a diverse set of identities and histories; few are straightforward. Consequently, trainees have excellent opportunities to learn psychotherapy, often in challenging situations.

Unlike most college and university counseling services, Haverford does not set a limit on the number of sessions that students may have with a therapist. Hence, trainees have the opportunity to work with students in individual psychotherapy for the entire academic year. They may also have opportunities to participate in outreach or co-facilitate psychotherapy groups with senior staff or graduate fellows.

Our college counseling service is committed to maintaining a staff that truly works as a team. Our senior staff consists of three clinical social workers, four clinical psychologists, and one psychiatrist. We value sharing clinical material and working collaboratively where such work is possible. Trainees are expected to manage their cases with confidentiality, care, and sensitivity to how their own social location may inform assumptions about what the "good life" is.

We are interested in trainees who are curious about how the inner world is formed by both cultural context and history and who can engage others towards this end by virtue of their openness to "not knowing" and their ability to listen. Further, we hope trainees are interested in working with late adolescents and young adults and are thoughtful about the promotion of inclusivity and social justice in their practice. Our chief goal in our training program is not to teach technique, but to facilitate an in-depth experience with the role of the unconscious in the communications and feelings of both the psychotherapist and client. While we expect trainees to bring rigorous intellectual thinking to their work, we also expect them to be willing to question all assumptions about the meaning of symptom clusters and therapeutic interventions. This includes considerations of culture, identity, power, and privilege within and outside of the therapeutic relationship.

Every week, trainees participate in two hours of individual supervision with two different supervisors, a training seminar, psychiatric rounds, a clinical team meeting and a reading seminar. In past years, we have read the writings of Donald Winnicott, Thomas Ogden, Donna Orange, Karen Maroda, Agvi Saketopoulou, and Jessica Benjamin as well as focused on topics such as racism/intersectionality, suicide, sexuality, and the body.

Graduate Training

Doctoral Student Externships & Social Work Student Internships

At CAPS, we offer two types of graduate training opportunities: (1) doctoral student externships and (2) graduate social work internships. These opportunities vary in terms of the number of hours they entail commensurate with the requirements of the programs from which trainees come. Training positions extend from late August to mid-May.

Interviews with selected candidates begin in late January. Applicants should send a letter of introduction and resume or curriculum vitae by January 20 to:

Pamela Lehman, Ph.D.
Director of Clinical Training
plehman1 [at] haverford.edu
610-896-1290

Postgraduate Fellowships

Haverford CAPS offers two part time Postgraduate Fellowships. Fellows come from the fields of Clinical Psychology and Social Work. The fellowships allow license-eligible psychologists or social workers to work towards licensure. Applicants should have a special interest in working with late adolescents and young adults and be interested in working along with the staff of Counseling & Psychological Services (CAPS).

The positions are part-time and entail professional engagement during the College’s academic year (late August to mid-May). Fellows work for the whole of the academic year from late August to mid-May.

Fellows will receive two hours of individual supervision with two different supervisors. In addition, They will have an opportunity to supervise graduate trainees under supervision from senior staff. Fellows are also expected to take one week of after-hours emergency call per month under the supervision of senior staff. In addition, there are some limited opportunities to consult within the student services personnel and possibly to run groups or conduct workshops in accordance with their interests and the needs of our college students.

Fellowships run on two-year cycles. Applications will not be accepted until Fall of 2025 and information will be posted then, including how to apply on Haverford Colleges human resource website.