Psychosis Track

Training Director:

Neil D. Woodward, PhD, Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences

Julia Sheffield, PhD, Assistant Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences

Email: neil.d.woodward@vumc.org; julia.sheffield@vumc.org

Number of Positions: 1

Salary: $40,000

Term: July 1, 2026 - June 30, 2027

National Matching Service (NMS) Number: 245420

Overview

The Psychosis track provides a full year of generalist training in adult clinical psychology with an emphasis on intervention; assessment and clinical phenotyping; and research of psychotic disorders.

The Psychosis Emphasis intern will join a multidisciplinary team of clinicians and researchers who assess, treat, and study patients with a psychotic disorder. Training is conducted through the Vanderbilt Early Psychosis Program, a member clinic of the Academic Community Early Psychosis Intervention Network (AC-EPINET). The Vanderbilt Early Psychosis Program provides a comprehensive set of services, including stabilization of acutely ill patients on dedicated inpatient units, intensive group therapy in partial hospital and intensive outpatient programs, and follow-up in multi-specialty outpatient clinics. Embedded in these services is an active translational research program supported by several NIMH grants and institutional endowments focusing on mechanisms and treatment of psychosis.

Interns are a critical part of the psychosis team valued for their knowledge and experience they bring. We strive to recruit interns from a variety of backgrounds and representing a range of intersecting identities and lived experiences to mirror the diversity of our patient population. We further aim to provide interns with a well-rounded experience of working in an academic medical center and psychiatric hospital, while providing supervision and professional development with an eye towards the intern's specific life and career goals.

Training Objectives
Training is designed to establish competency in the following areas as they relate to psychosis:
Outpatient psychotherapy
Inpatient evaluation and treatment
Assessment
Research
At the end of the internship, the intern should be able to function competently, autonomously, and with confidence in a variety of clinical and research settings. They will have a breadth of knowledge about psychosis and related problems, such as PTSD, mood and anxiety disorders, substance use, and cognitive deficits.

Training Experiences/Structure
The Psychosis Emphasis intern will spend 4.5 days/week engaged in the following:
Outpatient Psychotherapy: Interns gain experience providing psychotherapeutic interventions to individuals with a psychotic disorder and co-occurring disorders from experts in the field:
CBT for Psychosis: Interns will be trained in the formulation and delivery of CBT for psychosis. This will include implementation of empirically-supported treatments for persecutory delusions and hallucinations (e.g. the Feeling Safe Program). Interns will be trained to conceptualize psychotherapeutic targets, formulate appropriate interventions, and administer treatments for those at early and prolonged stage of illness, as well as working with families to best support recovery.
Navigate First Episode Team/AC-EPINET (Coordinated Specialty Care): Interns will have the opportunity to be the therapist for individuals served on the Navigate team, which includes psychotherapy, medication management, multi-family group, peer support, and vocational support for young adults managing a first episode of psychosis. Interns will participate in a weekly Navigate coordinated care meeting with all providers. Individuals on the Navigate team may also be enrolled in the AC-EPINET Learning Health Systems and clinical research, offering a unique view into the integration between clinical and research services.
Co-Occurring Disorders: Interns will gain additional training in outpatient psychotherapy for disorders frequently co-occurring with psychosis, including PTSD, mood disorders, anxiety disorders, insomnia, and substance use disorders. Interns will implement cognitive-behavioral approaches to the treatment of these disorders.
Inpatient Rounding: Working as part of a treatment team on the VPH inpatient units, interns participate in the daily assessment of acutely ill patients, by rounding on inpatient units with the treatment team. Interns gain exposure to a variety of clinical presentations including frank psychosis, disorganization, affective disorders, catatonia, substance abuse, and intellectual and neurodevelopmental disabilities. This unique experience emphasizes detailed clinical phenotyping of psychosis and building case conceptualization skills.
Research. Interns will engage in research during the internship year. Interns wishing to emphasize research during internship may spend up to 25% of their time (1.5 days/week) engaged in research and will be expected to a complete a research project. At the beginning of the internship year, the intern, working in collaboration with the intern’s primary supervisor, will select a research project that is aligned with the intern’s research interests and graduate training, and is feasible within the constraints of the internship year and resources of the program. Research projects typically span one or more core areas of training: assessment and clinical phenotyping; intervention; and neuropsychology/neuroscience.
Inpatient Psychotherapy: Interns have the opportunity to gain training in providing psychotherapy services to individuals at an acute phase of illness. This includes co-facilitating group therapy on an acute psychosis unit as well as offering brief, individual psychotherapy. Interns will co-facilitate different empirically-supported groups including: CBT for psychosis, body focused movement group for reducing anomalous body experiences, social skills groups, improving your sleep group, and distress tolerance group.
Psychological Assessment. Interns have the opportunity to obtain experience conducting psychological evaluations, including the Structured Interview for Psychosis Risk Syndromes (SIPS), psychodiagnostics assessment, and neuropsychological assessment. These assessments occur in the outpatient setting. Interns interested in neuropsychological assessment may have the opportunity to dedicate one full day a week to gain experience conducting neuropsychological assessments in individuals with a psychotic disorder as well as adults presenting with a range of neurocognitive difficulties.
Current research areas and topics include:
Neuroimaging brain structure, function and connectivity
Cognitive and psychological contributors to psychosis
Intervention research
Dimensional and categorical approaches to psychosis and co-occurring disorders
Recent intern research projects are listed below.
Bergson Z, Roeske MJ, Rogers BP, Haung AS, Fox V, Heckers S, Woodward ND. (in press) Characterizing interthalamic adhesion morphology in schizophrenia: Associations with aging, neuropsychological functioning, and atypical hippocampal development. Biological Psychiatry: Cognitive Neuroscience and Neuroimaging.
Moussa-Tooks A, Rogers BP, Huang AS, Sheffield JM, Heckers S, Woodward ND. (2022) Cerebellar structure and cognitive ability in psychosis. Biological Psychiatry, 92(5):385-395.
Dean DJ, Woodward ND, Walther S, McHugo M, Armstrong K, Heckers S. (2020) Cognitive motor impairments and brain structure in schizophrenia spectrum disorder patients with a history of catatonia. Schizophrenia Research, 222:335-341.
Sheffield JM, Rogers BP, Blackford JU, Heckers S, Woodward ND. (2019) Accelerated aging of functional brain networks supporting cognitive function in psychotic disorders. Biological Psychiatry, 86(3):240-248.
Karcher NR, Rogers BP, Woodward ND. (2019) Functional connectivity of the striatum in schizophrenia and psychotic bipolar disorder. Biological Psychiatry: Cognitive Neuroscience and Neuroimaging, 4(11):956-965.

Example Intern Schedule

		Mo	Tue	Wed	Thu	Fri
AM	8	Supervision	Supervision	Supervision	Research	Didactics
	9	Assessment	Inpatient Rounding	Inpatient Rounding	Research	Didactics
	10	Assessment	Inpatient Rounding	Inpatient Rounding	Research	Didactics
	11	Assessment	Inpatient Psychotherapy	Inpatient Psychotherapy	Research	Didactics
PM	13	Outpatient Psychotherapy	Outpatient Psychotherapy	Outpatient Psychotherapy	Research	Research
	14	Outpatient Psychotherapy	Outpatient Psychotherapy	Outpatient Psychotherapy	Inpatient Team Meeting	Research
	15	Outpatient Psychotherapy	Outpatient Psychotherapy	Outpatient Psychotherapy	Early Psychosis Team Meeting	Research
	16	Inpatient Group	Inpatient Group	Outpatient Psychotherapy	Research	Research

Additional Criteria for Selection

Prior graduate training and experience in assessment, intervention, and/or research in psychotic disorders is preferred. Applications from interns whose achievements reflect a strong commitment to pursue careers in academic clinical and/or research settings will be viewed favorably.

Alumni

2024-2025: Zachary Bergson, PhD | APPIC Psychosis Postdoctoral Fellow, VUMC Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences
2023-2024: Lauren Weittenhiller, PhD | Postdoctoral Fellow, UCLA/Los Angeles VA
2021-2022: Arielle Ered, PhD | Postdoctoral Fellow, University of Pennsylvania Department of Psychiatry
2020-2021: Alex Moussa-Tooks, PhD | Assistant Professor, VUMC Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences
2019-2020: Beshaun Davis, PhD | Assistant Professor, University of Maryland School of Medicine
2018-2019: Derek Dean, PhD | Business Analyst, Epilog Laser
2017-2018: Julia Sheffield, PhD | Assistant Professor, VUMC Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences
2016-2017: Nicole Karcher, PhD | Assistant Professor, Washington University School of Medicine

Overview

Psychology Internship