Staff Perspective: Pathways to Military Internship

Staff Perspective: Pathways to Military Internship

This week, 26-30 July 2021, the Center for Deployment Psychology was proud to present the most recent iteration of The Summer Institute. This five-day program is designed to provide doctoral students a glimpse into what it is like to serve as a psychologist in the Armed Forces and to help prepare them for a military internship. As part of this program, participants attend didactics, experiential exercises, and panel/group discussions led by CDP faculty and guest presenters. The event is held on the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences (USU) campus in Bethesda, MD. 

We'd like to thank all the participants, presenters and CDP staff for making this year's Summer Institute such a resounding success. It's been a difficult year all around and it was great to be able to pull off such a challenge. We're already looking forward to next year's event. We'll have the dates soon. In the meantime, if you're interested in attending next year or if you know someone else who might be, head over to The Summer Institute section of the CDP website for more info. The application period for the 2022 Summer Instiute will begin this November.

If you can't wait until the next Summer Institute, we've got great news! In an effort to expand our reach to participants who are unable to travel to USU or have busy summer schedules, we're introducing The Winter Institute. This three-day course will be held from 10-12 January 2022. It will be completely online and feature much of the same content as the face-to-face Summer Institute. The Winter Institute has the same mission, to inform and prepare doctoral students about life as a military psychologist. CDP has extensive experience in presenting high-quality training via online platforms. We hope by holding the course online, it will allow more interested individuals to receive this information. The curriculum for The Winter Institute will include:

  • Types of clinical and assessment opportunities for military psychologists
  • The warrior ethos, deployment cycle stress, military family challenges and resilience
  • Ethical dilemmas faced by providers working with military patients. Students have the opportunity to explore situations that may expose military psychologists to unique ethical challenges
  • Clinical problems experienced by service members and interventions used at military clinics

We will begin accepting applications for the 2022 Winter Institute in August. For more information or to join the mailing list, head over to The Winter Institute's page here

The opinions in CDP Staff Perspective blogs are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinion of the Uniformed Services University of the Health Science or the Department of Defense.