Psychology Pre-Doctoral and Post-Doctoral Training
Melanie Olivas Longhurst, Ph.D., M.Ed.
Psychology Training Director
Welcome to the psychology training programs! Texas Tech Health Sciences Center El Paso has opportunities for both predoctoral and post-doctoral psychology training. These programs are designed to prepare psychologists with a solid foundation in general clinical psychology who can provide quality, culturally competent care to diverse populations in public sector medical center or academic settings. Our goal is to train psychologists with a foundation of scientific practice to improve the health and quality of life of the community we serve by providing quality and compassionate care in collaboration with providers from other disciplines. In addition to the provision of direct and indirect clinical care, our trainees will also assist with educating other trainees and colleagues through presentations on mental health topics. The program operates using the scientist practitioner model of training. Trainees are expected to incorporate scientific literature into the context of their clinical practice to include provision of psychotherapy, supervision, teachings, and administrative/research projects. As part of the commitment to multicultural competence, psychology trainees at Texas Tech Health El Paso will be encouraged to participate in TTUHSC EP’s Office of Global Health and Societies Committee seminars and grand rounds, as time permits.
Erika A. Pereda, Psy.D
Psychology Fellowship Training Director
The following include some of the rotations available to psychology trainees:
The psychology outpatient clinic provides ambulatory direct patient care by diagnosing and treating the full spectrum of behavioral health conditions within the Department of Psychiatry clinic to patients across the lifespan within the community. Trainees will receive training in a variety of clinical services, including conducting diagnostic clinical interviews and a variety of psychotherapy approaches to individuals.
The Texas Child Mental Health Care Consortium was created by the 86th Texas Legislature to leverage the expertise and capacity of the health-related institutions of higher education to address urgent mental health challenges and improve the mental health care system in this state in relation to children and adolescents. The Texas Child Health Access Through Telemedicine Program (TCHATT) is one of five initiatives the TCMHCC funded. TCHATT provides telemedicine or telehealth to school districts to help identify and assess the behavioral health needs of children and adolescents and provide access to mental health services. The Department of Psychiatry at Texas Tech Health El Paso administers TCHATT in 16 counties, including El Paso, across the West Texas region to K-12 students.
Fellows will have the opportunity to provide brief social-emotional assessments, short-term therapy interventions, and progress monitoring of students via telehealth. Fellows will collaborate within an interdisciplinary team and will make referrals to the care coordination team if additional services are needed.
The Department of Psychiatry provides consultative services at University Medical Center in El Paso, a 270-bed general hospital. Service is throughout the hospital, including the emergency room, intensive care units, and wards. Services include diagnosis and treatment of major psychiatric disorders, including depression, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, PTSD, dementia, delirium, and substance use disorders. In this rotation, the psychology trainees will be exposed to team-based care working along with medical students, residents, nurse practitioners, and attending psychiatrists. By the end of the rotation, the trainees will be able to identify mental illness in a medically ill person, identify psychiatric emergencies, and differentiate between delirium and psychosis, as well as between delirium and dementia.
The Department of Psychiatry provides consultative services at El Paso Children’s Hospital. Service is throughout the hospital, including the emergency room and intensive care units. Child psychiatric consultations include diagnosis and treatment of various psychiatric disorders. Responsibilities for psychology trainees include providing brief psychological interventions to children and their families and collaborating on treatment planning with an interdisciplinary team of medical students, residents, nurse practitioners, and attending psychiatrists.
The psychiatry residency program at Texas Tech Health El Paso offers a psychotherapy rotation for the residents in their third and fourth years. Residents are assigned at least two psychotherapy patients and will receive weekly psychotherapy supervision by either a psychiatry or psychology faculty member throughout their third and fourth year of residency.
Fellows will provide weekly supervision to third- and fourth-year psychiatry residents on their psychotherapy cases and will receive weekly tiered supervision to discuss the residents’ cases and progress.