Integrated Behavioral Health Curriculum in Counseling Psychology Training Programs

Abstract

Effective training in integrated behavioral health requires systematic, interprofessional education that is anchored in competencies. We describe core learning objectives, competencies, and strategies for assessing counseling psychology trainees in integrated health care settings. Two programs that have transformed their training to emphasize interprofessional and primary care competencies of psychological practice are presented, along with their training goals and didactic and experiential curricular activities. We describe the assessment of student learning, accompanied by program adjustments implemented to improve student outcomes. We conclude with a call for counseling psychologists to ensure student competency development as members of the interprofessional health care workforce.

Setting Our Sails: Counseling Psychology in the Age of Integrated Health Care

“…Boland, Juntunen, Kim, Adams, and Navarro (2019 [this issue]) rightly argue that adjusting our sails to the winds of integrated care will require realizing that the value systems and approaches that define our field (holistic and comprehensive care, strengths-based treatment, multiculturalism, advocacy, prevention, and early intervention; Johnson, 2013;Vogel, Kirkpatrick, Collings, Cederna-Meka, & Grey, 2012) compel us to become more involved in integrated care and that we have the requisite expertise to do so, although integrated care socialization may be lacking in our training models. Boland et al (2019) highlight the necessity of interprofessional training for counseling psychology students, pointing out that collaboration with diverse health care specialties requires specific skills and competencies and outlining those established by the Interprofessional Education Collaborative (IPEC, 2011). Unfortunately, these competencies are rarely included in counseling psychology training programs, and typically our students are only taught to collaborate and communicate with other psychologists, or in the narrowest training models, only with other counseling psychologists.…”

“…Explicit examples and role models of interprofessional training and collaboration in counseling psychology programs may be scarce, but Boland et al (2019) provide two concrete examples of integrated care training for counseling psychology students, and Berkel et al (2019 [this issue]) show how counseling psychologists who actually work in integrated health care teams experience their roles and how their training prepared-or did not prepare-them for these roles. Although the counseling psychology competencies (Covey et al, 2013) allude in a general manner to interprofessional work, this general approach may be insufficient for the current dynamic landscape of integrated care.…”

“…Although the counseling psychology competencies (Covey et al, 2013) allude in a general manner to interprofessional work, this general approach may be insufficient for the current dynamic landscape of integrated care. Boland et al (2019) identify a number of strategies that our field can use to more fully integrate interprofessional competence into counseling psychology training. Currently our discipline has very little guidance in this regard, often looking to other disciplines for leadership and direction.…”

“…Further, we can advocate within health systems for services when patients' needs go unnoticed or ignored by other health care providers, and bring a humanistic and holistic perspective to settings that all too often only emphasize biomedical diagnosis and treatment. Despite the concrete examples of how counseling psychologists can enact these roles (Berkel et al, 2019) and make interprofessional competencies integral to our training curriculum (Boland et al, 2019), we think there are several important issues facing our programs that should be considered.…”

“…Perhaps another barrier to counseling psychologists' involvement in integrated care is our relatively slower uptake of evidence-based practices (EBPs) than our clinical counterparts. Boland et al (2019) argue that counseling psychologists in primary care should be able to use EBPs including motivational interviewing, solution-focused therapy, cognitive behavioral approaches, acceptance and commitment therapy, and mindfulness-based interventions. Often in integrated care, necessarily brief interventions are focused on functional outcomes or symptom reduction.…”