APA - Accredited

Doctoral Internship

The APA-Accredited Doctoral Internship at Momentous Institute offers an opportunity to grow both personally and professionally. Grounded in the belief that knowing our own assumptions, guiding principles and cultural influences ultimately leads to professional growth and change, we strive to create a learning environment that encourages and challenges.

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Why Momentous Institute?

Momentous Institute’s training program was first accredited by the American Psychological Association (APA) in 2000 and received a 10-year reaccreditation in 2024. The next site visit isn’t required until 2034.
Our program focuses on building advanced clinical skills, professional identity, and a commitment to self-reflection. Trainees gain experience providing individual, group, family, and play therapy for children, adolescents, and adults.
We emphasize linguistically and trauma-informed psychological assessments that help caregivers understand a child’s strengths and needs, aiming to tell each child’s story rather than focus only on diagnosis.
Spanish-speaking trainees can further develop clinical skills in Spanish through supervision with bilingual supervisors

Internship Structure and Activities

Individual & Family Therapy
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Interns are expected to carry a clinical therapy caseload of 12 - 15 families.
Typical client concerns include emotional/behavioral dysregulation, acute or complex trauma, school issues, and ruptured family attachment systems. Momentous Institute does not impose session limits with length of treatment being collaboratively identified based on client needs.
Interns often work from a conjoint individual and family therapy framework to address the unique needs of the system. This approach allows interns to be flexible in treatment and address underlying needs of a family through work with the identified client, the whole family, or various family subsystems (siblings, parent-child, caregivers).
We strive to provide interns with diverse clinical experiences through their therapy caseload and support development of autonomy and independence throughout the training year.

Reflecting Team
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Interns will participate as clinicians on the Reflecting Team, a family therapy intervention, throughout the full training year. Rooted in systemic and post-modern theories, the Reflecting Team involves two co-therapists conducting a family therapy session, while a team of therapists observe. Throughout the session, the team shares thoughtful reflections with the family to offer new perspectives, highlight strengths, and invite deeper understanding of their situation and system. During the year, interns act as both the co-therapist and as a member of the reflecting team, with the intention of developing clinical insight, confidence, and therapeutic communication in a collaborative and supportive setting.

Group Therapy
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Interns are required to participate in 1 semester of group therapy during the training year. Typically, interns join one of our existing clinical groups as a co-facilitator. These groups include:
1)       Launch – a child and family oriented group for children aged 3-6. Launch focuses on strengthening attachment systems and supporting both caregiver’s ability to co-regulate and child’s ability to self-regulate.
2)       Forward Thinkers – a child-oriented group for children aged 7-10. Forward Thinkers is an experiential group that utilizes an ACT framework to develop psychological flexibility, self-regulation, and social skills.
3)       Huddle Up – an adolescent and family-oriented group for teens aged 11-15. Huddle Up also utilizes experiential and process-based interventions to strengthen communication, support social skills, and enhance self-awareness.
There are often additional group therapies offered throughout the year that interns may participate in. Additionally, Interns can choose to develop their own group in collaboration with a supervisor or clinician at Momentous.
Throughout the training year, interns will also have several opportunities to engage in our nature-based group therapy programs at our Piney Woods Campus located in East Texas.
Comprehensive Psychological Assessments
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Interns are expected to complete 4-6 comprehensive assessments during their training year. The majority of assessment cases are with students (grade Kindergarten through 5^th) at the Momentous School. Referral questions typically involve concerns about academics, neurodevelopment, and/or socioemotional functioning. However, students at the Momentous School commonly present with dynamic histories, which may include complex traumas, grief and loss, and family stressors. Further, the majority of students that we assess are dual-language learners with rich, cultural backgrounds.
At Momentous we strive to provide a collaborative, therapeutic, and culturally-informed assessment experience to children and their families. This approach will develop interns skills with regards to differential diagnosing, examining the role of contextual factors, and using the assessment findings as a therapeutic intervention.

Integrated Health Grand Rounds Brief Assessments
Interns will also complete a rotation with the Integrated Health Grand Rounds (IHGR) Team, which includes our psychiatric nurse practitioner and a licensed psychologist. The intern’s role on IHGR is to conduct brief, focused assessments to answer a specific referral question. This assessment can then be used to inform psychiatric treatment, therapeutic treatment goals, and/or to advocate for comprehensive assessment through a child’s school district. The IHGR rotation is meant to develop brief assessment skills, such as measurement selection and focused clinical interviewing, while also supporting consultation skills with members of an interdisciplinary team.
To further develop supervisory competence, interns often have the opportunity to provide supervision to masters level practicum students during their training year. Interns generally oversee a single clinical case and receive support through seminars and supervision of supervision.
Interns also develop consultation competencies through a monthly consultation meeting with the Momentous School. During this meeting, Interns, in addition to a licensed psychologist, meet with teachers to provide support, resources, and recommendations regarding individual student behaviors and classroom challenges.
Interns receive 3 hours of weekly clinical didactics focused on topics relevant to their work at Momentous Institute. These didactics are intended to provide interns with advanced training and exposure to a variety of theoretical orientations, therapeutic interventions, and relevant psychotherapy and assessment topics including ethics, crisis assessment, culture and diversity, psychopharmacology, evidenced-based practices, diagnosis and treatment planning, etc. We strive to make didactics engaging through experiential activities, active dialogue, and practical applications.
Throughout the year, interns also have many opportunities to engage in clinical learning alongside Momentous staff during monthly clinical conversations, play therapy consultations, and additional all-staff trainings. Bilingual clinicians are also encouraged to attend our monthly Spanish consultation group.

Developing the Person-of-the-Therapist

We believe who the therapist is deeply shapes the therapeutic process. Our internship emphasizes personal growth alongside professional training, helping interns develop authenticity, empathy, and a strong ethical foundation.

Program Focus

Build self-awareness and relational style
Gain supervision, hands-on learning, and reflection
Explore reactions, biases, and dynamics in practice
Strengthen professional identity and growth
Commit to lifelong reflection and integrity

Supervision Model

Supervision is a core part of intern development, offering guidance, mentoring, and tailored support that grows with each intern’s skills. Interns receive weekly and monthly individual and group supervision through live observation, feedback, and mentorship from licensed psychologists and other mental health professionals.

Supervision Highlights

4+ hrs weekly individual supervision
Reflecting team and group supervision
Monthly group sessions and mentorship

Application & Interview Process

- Doctoral student in a professional psychology training program that is accredited by the American Psychological Association or the Canadian Psychological Association. Students from non-accredited programs will not be considered for an interview.
- Successful completion of at least four semesters of supervised practicum courses in counseling/psychotherapy
- Completion of all graduate coursework by the start of internship
- Passing score on qualifying/comprehensive examinations by rank deadline
- Successfully proposed dissertation by application deadline, with preference for applicants who are nearing completion of dissertation (e.g., completed data collection) by start of internship
- Minimum of 250 intervention hours by the application deadline
- Minimum of 5 integrated assessments, 2 of which must be with a child client (under age 15)
  - As defined by APPIC, the definition of an integrated report is a report which includes a review of history, results of an interview and at least two psychological tests from one or more of the following categories: personality measures, intellectual tests, cognitive tests, and neuropsychological tests.
  - Given the nature of the testing referrals we receive, at least two of the integrated reports must include a full cognitive measure (i.e., WPPSI, WISC, WJ-Cog, KABC) and a full academic achievement measure (i.e., WIAT, WJ-Ach, KTEA) to be considered for an interview.
  - Additionally, preference will be given to applicants who have experience administering and interpreting objective and projective social/emotional measures (i.e. BASC, BRIEF, Robert's Stories, Thematic Apperception Test, MMPI-A).
  - Applicants who have not completed the minimal number of psychological assessments will typically not be considered for an interview.
Per APPIC policies, only clinical services provided to actual patients can be counted in the intervention and assessment categories (simulated patient scenarios should not be captured in these categories).
Deadline November 10, 2025
All application materials should be uploaded through the APPIC portal using the APPI system.
- Letter of Interest
- CV
- Official transcript of all graduate work
- Three letters of reference, with at least two from individuals who have supervised your counseling or clinical work
- De-identified integrated psychological assessment report (child assessment is preferred)
AAPIC Directory Page: https://membership.appic.org/directory/display/48
Momentous Institute will host 2 virtual open houses for applicants offered an interview to learn more about our program. During the open house, applicants will have opportunities to ask questions of both supervisors and current interns. Zoom links will be sent out with interview offers.
Option 1: Tuesday, December 16, from 12:00 – 2:00 CST
Option 2: Monday, January 5, from 12:00 – 2:00 CST
Applicants will be notified via email about interview offers no later than Friday, December 12.
All interviews will be conducted virtually via zoom. Interviewees will participate in an 80-minute interview with members of the Psychology Training Committee. Interview scheduling will be conducted via the NMS Interview System. Additional details will be included in the interview offer email.
2026 Interview Dates: January 9, January 12, January 14, January 20, January 22

"Clients have the opportunity to focus on their family's needs without additional stressors such as high costs and session limitations."

Therapist, Momentous Institute

FAQs

The internship is housed in our community mental health services department; however, interns often have many opportunities to gain experience at the Momentous School. During the training year, interns will conduct comprehensive psychological assessments for students at our school. Historically, interns have also run school groups for different grade levels and provided consultation for Momentous school teachers.
While we welcome students from school psychology backgrounds, please note that the structure of our internship cannot guarantee the required hours needed in a school setting for LSSP licensure. Students wishing to seek this specific licensure should consult with the licensure board for the state they intend to practice to determine how our program aligns with necessary licensure requirements.
At Momentous, we hope to provide generalist training that equips our interns to work with an array of presenting concerns and with individuals from across the developmental spectrum. Thus, we do not offer specific tracks/rotations within our program. However, we guarantee that our interns will gain experience in family therapy, child assessment, and in clinical practice with children, teens, and adults.
Additionally, our internship program requires participation in at least 1 group experience during the training year. Typically, interns participate in Huddle Up, our teen program, Forward Thinkers, our middle childhood program, or Launch, our early childhood program. We also have many other group programs that interns may opt to participate in throughout the year (e.g., Nature-Based Therapy, Parent Education, school groups).
Momentous Institute strives to prepare interns to work in a variety of clinical settings. Historically, our interns have completed postdoctoral fellowships and/or started their careers in hospitals, academic health centers, community mental health settings, school districts, and private practices.
Momentous Institute does offer one postdoctoral fellowship per training year. The postdoctoral fellowship lasts for one year and typically begins in August/September. Our fellowship is not APA-accredited; however, we are considered a substantially equivalent program in Texas under Rule 882.26. For additional information about our postdoctoral fellowship, please contact Dr. Ashley Geerts-Perry at [email protected].

The Doctoral internship in Clinical Psychology at Momentous Institute has been fully accredited by the American Psychological Association (APA) since March of 2000. In 2024, Momentous Institute was awarded a 10-year reaccreditation by the APA. The next reaccreditation site visit will not be required until 2034. The APA Commission on Accreditation can be reached at:

Office of Program Consultation and Accreditation Psychological Association 750 1st Street, NE, Washington, DC 20002

Phone: (202) 336-5979

E-mail: [email protected]

Web: www.apa.org/ed/accreditation

Have more questions?

Ashley Geerts-Perry, Ph.D.

Licensed Psychologist

Associate Training Director - APA Doctoral Internship, Doctoral Practicum, Postdoctoral Fellowship

[email protected]
214-915-4766