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Garden Health
Group

Garden Health Group offers a doctoral internship in health service psychology at our practice in River Forest, Illinois. The internship is a 2,000-hour training experience completed over eighteen months at 32 hours per week, and engages 2-4 interns per cycle.
 

Training in a private practice setting offers something interns don't always find elsewhere. You'll build a generalist foundation while also developing depth in specific treatment approaches and modalities, including DBT, somatic approaches, ACT, and exposure and response prevention. Interns train alongside our postdoctoral fellows and our team of prelicensed clinicians, which means a peer cohort at several stages of development rather than an isolated placement.

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Please click HERE to download our Doctoral Internship Brochure. 

Please note our Application deadline is
December 1, 2026 by 11:59 pm CST.

Doctoral Internship in
Health Service Psychology

Group Book Discussion
Group Studying Together

Approximately 14-16 hours of the intern’s time each week is spent in direct service to Garden Health Group clients through direct sessions and assessment activity. Interns receive training in working with clients across the lifespan, carrying a therapy caseload at GHG for the full 18 months. In addition to their therapy caseload, interns also complete at least six integrated psychological assessment batteries, which are tailored to the training needs and interests of the intern.

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Interns participate in learning activities each week including weekly 2-hour didactic trainings organized around the nine APA profession-wide competencies. Interns participate in multiple hours of supervision each week including individual supervision with primary and secondary supervisors.

The current supervisory team includes five licensed psychologists with varying backgrounds and specialities, all of whom participate in supervision and didactic trainings.  (Their profiles are included in the official brochure.)

Training Structure​

Interns’ work schedules are organized around regularly scheduled supervisory meetings, trainings, diagnostic testing blocks, and some evening and weekend hours. The following time breakdown may be helpful in achieving a sense of time commitment:

32 hours per week, with approximately 2,200 hours in total 
(2,000 required for completion)
 

  • Direct Service

    • Therapy with a supervised set of selected clients, building to a steady load of 12 - 14 client sessions per week

    • Psychological Assessments, including training,  practice, supervision​, and completion of at least six batteries during the course of the internship.

  • Training

    • Interns participate in at least two weekly hours of formal supervision and at least two weekly hours of didactic learning activities.

  • Case Management/Documentation/Authorizations

    • Interns have six to eight hours a week for documentation, scoring, and report writing, and two to three hours for intake, coordination, and interprofessional consultation.

  • Scholarly 

    • Interns are allowed to schedule up to 4 hours per month to work on a practice-based scholarly project.

Training Commitment

Counseling Session Meeting
Confident Professional Woman

Garden Health Group's internship training goals and objectives directly coincide with APPIC and the APA Commission on Accreditation’s Profession-Wide Competencies (below), and also include three practice-specific areas:  integrated care, community-embedded practice, and practice sustainability.
 

  • Competency 1: Research 

    • Aims: Critical evaluation and application of scientific knowledge

  • Competency 2: Ethical and Legal Standards 

    • Aims: Patient risk management, crisis management, patient confidentiality, ethics and Illinois law

  • Competency 3: Individual and Cultural Diversity

    • Aims: Awareness of one’s own background and sensitivity to patient diversity

  • Competency 4: Professional Values and Attitudes 

    • Aims: Professional interpersonal behavior, responsibility and accountability, self-reflection, administrative competency, time management, and use of self-care

  • Competency 5: Communication and Interpersonal Skills 

    • Aims: Effective and appropriate interpersonal communication, appropriate management of conflict, and appropriate use of supervision

  • Competency 6: Assessment 

    • Aims: Diagnostic skills, assessment and interviews skills, and competency in administering, scoring, interpretation, write-up and feedback of psychological assessment

  • Competency 7: Intervention 

    • Aims: Patient rapport, case conceptualization and treatment planning; case management, evidenced-based interventions, and flexibility with interventions

  • Competency 8: Supervision 

    • Aims: Applying models of supervision in practice by providing weekly supervision to an assigned master’s-level trainee, with supervision of that supervision from the Director of Training. 

  • Competency 9: Consultation and
    interprofessional/interdisciplinary skills 

    • Aims: Appropriate and effective coordination of care with other professionals

Training Goals & Competencies

Doctoral Intern compensation is $46,196 per year, with total of $69,294 over the full 18 months of the program.  This includes a salary of $1,600 every two weeks, plus a health care stipend ($250 every other bi-weekly pay period), and a 401K retirement contribution (3% per pay period). None of these amounts vary with the number of client sessions, assessments, or other hours completed in any pay period.  A pre-employment background check may be required.

Eligibility

Applicants to the Garden Health Group doctoral internship must, at the time of application:

  • be enrolled in and in good standing with a doctoral program in clinical, counseling, or school psychology;

  • have completed the academic coursework their doctoral program requires for entry to internship, including coursework in psychological

  • assessment, intervention, ethics and professional standards, and individual and cultural diversity;

  • have accumulated at least 500 hours of supervised doctoral practicum experience, of which at least 250 are direct intervention and

  • assessment hours with clients;

  • have completed at least three integrated psychological assessment reports;

  • have passed comprehensive or qualifying examinations, where the doctoral program requires them; and

  • provide a verification of readiness for internship signed by their director of clinical training.
     

An approved dissertation proposal is preferred but not required at the time of application. Applicants must be eligible to work in the United States.

Application Process & Intern Selection

This program is currently in the approval process for APPIC membership.  Assuming this membership is approved in Fall 2026, students wishing to apply for Garden Health Group's Doctoral Internship Program should submit via an APPIC application form.  Please include a personalized cover letter, curriculum vitae, and a verification of readiness for internship from their current Director of Clinical Training.

Should APPIC membership not be approved at the time of application, or if you have any questions regarding the application process, please submit the same materials or those questions to  Dr. Heather Corwin at DrC@GardenHealthGroup.com.

Selection process will proceed in accordance with APPIC's published guidelines. This Internship site agrees to abide by the APPIC policy that no person at this training facility will solicit, accept, or use any ranking-related information from any Intern applicant. The next internship cycle will begin on September 3, 2027.

Compensation & Benefits

Student Sitting in the Library
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