Therapy Hours for Internships

[PhDToBe]

Does anyone know the average amount of THERAPY hours required for most internships? I am particularly interested in forensic sites, like BOPs.

I am asking about JUST therapy hours, not assessment or anything else.

Thanks!!

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[erg923]

If you're asking about the average hours of those they accepted for interviews, I'm not sure if it would a useful stat, as I'm sure the number varies wildly. If you're asking about cutoffs that sites use, I am not aware of any. Obviously, you should have more than 50 or something, but I doubt many sites use strict cutoffs. In terms of therapy hours, I think I had like 180 individual therapy hours, 30 couples therapy hours, and like 20 group hours. I interviewed at some BOP sites.

I think hours is used as an intial metric to weed people out (before interviews) and to get a gross impression of how much experience an applicant has. Beyond that, I doubt many faculty people think about it or use it in the critical decision making process.

 

[Psych66]

I interviewed at several BOP's and am currently an intern at one. I don't think they really have cutoffs. That being said, I had around 200 individual therapy hours, 90 group hours.

 

[PhDToBe]

Any more input?

 

[aventurine]

Most NYC-area sites to which I applied required a minimum of 400-500 intervention hours, and a smaller, though not insignificant, number of assessment hours. You should look at APPIC's directory of APA-accredited sites in your area to see what is typical of wherever you may be applying.

You can do an advanced search by type of site, such as prisons.

 

[aventurine]

There appear to be 26 APA-accredited prison sites. Some do not list minimum hours, whereas other require up to 750 intervention hours (I just looked up my AAPI and found I'd applied with about 850 intervention hours, only about 50 of those completed during the extra year I took to work on my research prior to applying for the match, so it can be done). If you are set on a prison, just make sure you have what you need to be competitive for the majority of sites.

 

[PerhapsMaybeOk]

300-500 is normal. 850 is overkill for therapy hours.

 

[FadedC]

Out of curiosity, since we are generally applying for internship at the beginning of our 4th year, does that mean you need to get all your hours in during the first three years?

 

[aventurine]

300-500 is normal. 850 is overkill for therapy hours.

FWIW, I accrued 800 of these hours over the course of my required practica in my program (the other 50 were elective during an extra research year). As I said, 500 hours is the minimum for many internship sites in my area, and it is not at all uncommon for applicants to local sites to have more than that.

Whether or not that many hours is "overkill" depends on where you live and the type of specialized sites to which you're applying (some do require more hours). If the OP is applying to prison sites in certain areas of the country, more than 600 hours is required. Just saying that one should be sure to accrue enough hours to be competitive for the sites to which one is planning to apply (perhaps OP will choose only to apply to places with lower stated minimums).

Finally, applying for the match isn't the only reason for accruing therapy hours. My intention wasn't to pad my application (and I don't encourage trying to rack up unnecessary hours simply for that purpose), but to advance my training. I'm grateful for the depth of experience that I had, and I'm a better clinician for it.

 

[aventurine]

Out of curiosity, since we are generally applying for internship at the beginning of our 4th year, does that mean you need to get all your hours in during the first three years?

The application asks you for the number of hours by the time you submit it, plus it asks you to estimate your hours for the rest of the upcoming training year.

 

[AcronymAllergy]

FWIW, I accrued 800 of these hours over the course of my required practica in my program (the other 50 were elective during an extra research year). As I said, 500 hours is the minimum for many internship sites in my area, and it is not at all uncommon for applicants to local sites to have more than that.

Whether or not that many hours is "overkill" depends on where you live and the type of specialized sites to which you're applying (some do require more hours). If the OP is applying to prison sites in certain areas of the country, more than 600 hours is required. Just saying that one should be sure to accrue enough hours to be competitive for the sites to which one is planning to apply (perhaps OP will choose only to apply to places with lower stated minimums).

Finally, applying for the match isn't the only reason for accruing therapy hours. My intention wasn't to pad my application (and I don't encourage trying to rack up unnecessary hours simply for that purpose), but to advance my training. I'm grateful for the depth of experience that I had, and I'm a better clinician for it.

I haven't asked all of them, but I believe many (perhaps most?) people in my program end up with 700-800+ therapy/intervention hours as well, so I wouldn't say it's at all unusual or overkill. Part of this is because many stick around for a fifth year, and in addition to that, we typically start working with clients during our first semester.

I'm more neuro-focused myself, so like erg, I had somewhere around 150-200, if I'm remembering correctly.