Thank you for your interest in the Post-Master’s Fellowship at Michigan State University’s Counseling and Psychological Services (MSU CAPS)! This fellowship is an excellent opportunity for recent master’s-level graduates to continue their training in a positive- and multiculturally-focused environment.
Multiculturalism and social justice values and principles are at the heart of the CAPS training program. During their time at CAPS, fellows will learn to look at the influence of systems, honor individual experiences and cultivate the attitude of multiple ways of knowing.
The focus of the Post-Master’s Fellowship is to provide individuals with a supervised training experience that will allow them to enhance their clinical skills and increase their understanding of how to apply multicultural principles to their clinical practice. Our hope is to nurture early-career mental health professionals in a way that allows them to find their full potential as generalist clinicians. Fellows will also have the opportunity to select a emphasis area that will allow them to receive specialized training that will be consistent throughout the training year.
If you believe the Post Master’s Fellowship would be a good fit for you and your professional development, we encourage you to apply! Please feel free to reach out if you have any additional questions.
Warmly,
Mollie Delzeith, MA, LPC, ACS
Master’s Internship and Practicum Coordinator
delzeith@msu.edu
Candidates will be able to select from one of the following concentration areas after they have accepted the position. All concentration areas will be available to choose from for the upcoming fellowship/residency year. Each concentration area will include both direct clinical experience and didactic training.
Concentration Supervisor: Dukhae Sung, PhD, LP
This concentration area aims to examine, process, and integrate contemporary trauma research, models, and evidence-based approaches to trauma assessment and interventions. You will learn how trauma is defined socially, culturally, and clinically, as well as how to assess and identify trauma narratives in your clients. The concentration will cover the neurobiology of traumatic stress (e.g., ANS, Polyvagal Theory) and psychological and physiological repercussions of complex PTSD (e.g., adverse childhood experiences study and developmental trauma; attachment dysregulation; dissociation). In this way, you will learn to process trauma within the “Window of Tolerance,” to minimize the likelihood of re-traumatization and facilitate affect regulation and self-containment among clients. You will learn to assess complex PTSD symptoms within other diagnoses, including mood disorders, anxiety disorders, personality disorders, and dissociative disorders and utilize assessment tools to better inform treatment planning. You will develop a framework for integrative treatment for complex PTSD, drawn from EMDR Therapy, Parts Work Therapy, Internal Family Systems Therapy, Somatic Psychology, and mind-body therapies that will help clients feel resourced while engaging in effective trauma processing. In the context of neuroplasticity and posttraumatic growth, you will employ empowerment and resilience to foster relational regulation and integration of a coherent sense of self in your clients. Lastly but most importantly, you will be encouraged to connect to self-regulation practices to improve the therapeutic alliance and prevent burnout.
Concentration Supervisor: Ginny Blakely, LMSW
This concentration will include clinical focus, competency and humility training in a university setting, working with sexually and gender-diverse clients, including but not limited to identities such as questioning, lesbian, gay, bisexual and queer, as well as gender-diverse identities, including but not limited to gender-questioning, gender-exploring, transgender, nonbinary and genderqueer. Other areas of focus with these populations could include relationship styles, attractionality, intersectional identities and minority stress. Through individual and group therapy, supervision, liaison, and outreach opportunities, clinicians will learn queer, trans, feminist and multicultural approaches to foster and support identity development from LGBTQ-identified and experienced supervisors.
Clinical experiences can be tailored to the clinician’s areas of interest and could include the following:
Concentration supervisor: Olivia Scott, PhD
We maintain a philosophy that is ‘multiculturally focused’ and as a result, our outreach efforts are necessarily, inherently and intentionally culturally sensitive and racially responsive. Outreach is our means of engaging in the lives of those connected to our MSU Community and beyond; it is our goal to reach out to those that might not otherwise be comfortable accessing more traditional services through CAPS. Outreach involves awareness, education, stigma reduction, prevention, and collaboration by providing informational services, workshops, campus-wide programming, consultation and student support among other ways of engaging our community. This concentration area will provide a very experiential, hands-on opportunity to be involved in Outreach and Multicultural Initiatives in connection to MSU CAPS. Engagement in this selected concentration will involve participation on our Outreach Committee and related functions of program development, implementation and evaluation; mentorship, leadership and administrative exposure in this area; community and student engagement; and some needed flexibility and fun.
Concentration Supervisor: Josh Turchan, PhD
This concentration area will focus on experiential and didactic training in multiculturally centered brief and short-term psychodynamic psychotherapy with college-aged adults. We will integrate and conceptualize both cultural and developmental influences on the origin and maintenance of psychological problems. This concentration will focus on developing a contemporary and pluralistic approach to psychodynamic psychotherapy with an emphasis on relational/interpersonal psychodynamic theory and treatment, while also exploring and getting exposure to a variety of psychodynamic theories and evidence-based psychodynamic treatments. This concentration will focus on the primacy of the therapy relationship as a mechanism of change and will encourage the formal and informal assessment of psychotherapy processes. Residents who select this concentration will gain experience in using therapeutic assessment to inform and shape treatment, helping them and the patient collaboratively gain a better understanding of their presenting concerns. As part of this concentration, the candidate will also have the opportunity to co-lead an Interpersonal Process group to further enhance here-and-now relational/interpersonal interventions. The goal of this concentration is to provide the resident an opportunity to further develop their identity and skills in culturally-centered psychodynamic practice working in a collegiate mental health system.
Please include the following:
Special note regarding concentration areas:
Fellows will select one of the following concentration areas after accepting an offer:
LGBTQ Empowerment, Identity Development, and Affirming Care
2025-2026
Leo Harzman, MS, TLLP
2024-2025
Miranda O’Brien, MSW
2023-2024
Nicki Walker, MSW
2022-2024
Monica Hicks-Jackson, MA
We're looking forward to welcoming the fellows to our team! Learn more about the qualifications for successful candidates — and the benefits we provide — below.
Must have a bachelor’s degree and be enrolled in a master’s degree program (e.g. Counseling, Social Work, Psychology) with degree conferred prior to start of the fellowship.