Training | Counseling Center

Training Philosophy

The SCC subscribes to a practitioner-scholar model of training. The overarching goal of our training program is to provide high quality training in roles associated with work in a college counseling center setting, informed by values of ethically sound practice, prioritizing equity and inclusion, celebrating diversity, engaging in self-reflection, and using the self as an instrument. Learning objectives include but are not limited to:

1. Engage in critically conscious thinking with regard to equity, diversity, and inclusion (EDI) to improve ability to respond to client needs and to engage in systems work to improve service to underserved populations with an overall goal to approach work from an anti-oppressive stance.
2. Develop skills of self-reflection in order to:
   • Increase awareness of personal reactions and emotions during the course of therapy and in other aspects of our work, and increase ability to be emotionally present in session and attuned to clients. 
   • Increase awareness of individual intersecting identity markers and related aspects of power dynamics impacted by privilege and oppression that influence worldview, values, and approaches to interpersonal relationships.
   • Identify individual areas for growth and development and manage defenses with regard to individual growth. 
3. Develop skills to evaluate client needs within a short-term therapy model and to develop an appropriate clinical disposition, accounting for sociocultural contexts of each client, to: 
   • guide treatment recommendations.
   • engage in tasks associated with such a short-term therapy model including treatment planning, case management, and provision of appropriate referrals to other resources.
   • track therapeutic progress and manage client care through stages of therapy from initial rapport-building through termination and adapting therapeutic goals and interventions to meet client needs.
4. Improve case conceptualization and treatment planning skills through exposure to various theoretical orientations, approaches, and presenting concerns prevalent in college counseling center settings.
5. Improve skills related to engaging in risk assessment and follow-up care with clients presenting with risk to self or risk to others. 
6. Learn more about the different roles of a counselor through engagement in activities that include intervention on the individual, group, and system levels and gain a greater understanding of personal style and preferences with regard to different work tasks and environments.
7. Develop values related to engaging in the ethical practice of psychology and improving ethical acumen.
8. Engage in professional development related to working in a college counseling center and as part of a treatment team.

These learning objectives will be met through clinical experiences (e.g., provision of individual therapy, outreach activities, potential group therapy, case management), individual supervision, professional development seminars, small group supervision, all staff case consultation, case presentations, introspection, autonomous dedication to professional identity development, and through the trainee’s own interactions with staff and peers. The SCC has a strong commitment to training new professionals and seeks to co-create this experience with you by honoring the wisdom derived from your embodied, cultural, and ancestral ways of knowing and being.

Training Philosophies of Primary Supervisors

Dr. Amanda Guerrero, Staff Psychologist

In my supervision style I strive to develop a trusting, collaborative, and transparent relationship with my supervisees. I hope to cultivate this relationship through an emphasis on mutual respect, discussions encouraging the exploration of intersecting and divergent identities, and open conversations around power and privilege. In my therapeutic approach I attempt to integrate Acceptance and Commitment therapy (ACT) and multiple other modalities with a multicultural, social justice lens. Meaning I engage with my clients with the understanding that my role is to provide them with guidance, empathy, skills, knowledge, and compassion as they explore and identify means to engage in values that align with their unique worldview. In this process we deepen their awareness of systems that they live within, examine explore interpersonal relationships, cultural contexts, and their various intersecting identities to help them create tools and feel empowered to make the changes they want in their life. Similar to work with my clients, I plan to work alongside my supervisees to help them increase awareness of both their personal and professional values and identities, and address how these influence their clinical work. I am excited to assist my supervisees in their journey of uncovering their strengths, in their exploration of theoretical orientations and clinical techniques, in developing knowledge and skills about college mental health, and increasing their cultural responsiveness. 

Dr. Jamie Young, Staff Psychologist and Training Coordinator 
I have formal education, training, and supervised experience related to the provision of supervision, and I continue to engage in ongoing learning and consultation in order to increase my supervisory competencies. Since 2011, I have supervised students in their work with adolescents and adults in individual, couple, and group therapies, outreach, and systemic interventions. My treatment approach is insight-based and rooted in Relational Gestalt Therapy. In practice, I take a person-centered stance, striving toward egalitarian relationship dynamics, prioritizing subjective experience, and conceptualizing the person-in-context (e.g., systemic oppression, family of origin). Interventions frequently focus on interpersonal dynamics including within the therapeutic dyad, somatic experiencing/phenomenology, facilitation of catharsis, and exploration of attachment style and sociocultural dynamics. I aim to take a holistic and developmental approach and supplement treatment with skills-based interventions and referrals to external supports. Similarly, I view supervision as a collaborative process, in parallel with our therapeutic work. I invest in the relationship, working toward an anti-oppressive, egalitarian stance and attend to existing power dynamics. As a human, I am warm, creative, humorous, and conscientious. I will arrive to our relationship in line with my values of dialogue, exploration of different perspectives, accountability, ethical practice, and transparency. I ask that my supervisees meet me with regard to bringing authenticity and transparency to our relationship and find that I'm best able to support student practitioners when there is a level of comfort with boundaried self-disclosure related to professional roles (e.g., reactions to clients, stressors impacting work), mutuality with regard to honoring one another as cultural beings, and openness to bi-directional feedback. 

Dr. Keiko Aoyagi, Psychologist Resident

My approach to supervision integrates person-centered supervision with a multicultural lens, t heintegrated developmental model (IDM), and process models. I value a supervisory relationship as fundamental to individually tailored, meaningful supervision experience. As such, I focus on getting to know each other to appreciate ourselves not just as clinicians, but also as whole unique persons with their own intersecting identities, interpersonal styles, values, and worldviews, whose lived experiences in a multitude of ecological systems inform our clinical practice. By doing so, my hope is to co-create a supportive, culturally responsive, respectful, and hopefully empowering space to facilitate my supervisees’ therapeutic work with their diverse clients. To further facilitate rapport building and effective collaboration, I work on attuning myself to my supervisees’ training goals and paying careful attention to the power differential inherent to the evaluative nature of supervision. I strive to meet my supervisees where they are and facilitate my supervisees’ professional development as autonomous, culturally responsive, and intentional clinicians with their own clinical approaches through implementing flexibility in supervisory roles/foci, support, and developmentally appropriate challenges. My theoretical orientation is integrative, drawing primarily on humanistic therapy and skills-based approaches (ACT; CBT; DBT). I also utilize motivational Interviewing and solution-focused brief therapy and engage in continuous learning of interventions to help respond to clients’ various presenting concerns and varying readiness for change.

Dr. Laura E. Stallings, Director and Staff Psychologist, Dean of Student Wellbeing

My approach to supervision encompasses an integrated developmental feminist multicultural approach with a keen attention to centering collaboration, transparent discussions on power differentials, intersecting cultural dynamics within our relationship, and incorporating a social justice lens to acknowledge how ecological systems impact our work. It is my hope to collaboratively create a transparent, brave, and vulnerable supervisory relationship where my supervisees can take risks to explore the intersections of their personal and professional selves and how those intersections impact their clinical work and professional identities. It is a great joy to walk alongside my supervisees as I empower and encourage them to acknowledge and utilize their strengths and lived experiences, to experiment with utilizing various theoretical orientations and clinical interventions, increasing cultural responsiveness, building knowledge and skills about college mental health, and empowering them to reach their professional goals. It is important to me to remain flexible in my supervisory style, so that I can consistently seek out feedback and be responsive to each unique supervisee’s needs. In my clinical practice, my passions and expertise include working with clients who are impacted by mass trauma, interpersonal trauma, and bereavement. My theoretical orientation is integrative and primarily encompasses postmodern humanistic approaches, interpersonal process, phase-oriented integrated trauma models, and feminist and multicultural framework to understand and address the disempowering systemic factors in my client’s lives. I also incorporate secondary approaches when clinically appropriate including: brief-therapy modalities, developmental theories, and skills-based approaches (e.g., cognitive-behavioral therapy and dialectical-behavioral therapy).

Clinical Training Information

Our Clientele

Our center serves all enrolled students at our four campuses with offices on two campuses (i.e., Forest Grove and Hillsboro). In an effort to minimize dual relationships, many of our training activities take place at the Forest Grove location and trainees from the School of Graduate Psychology will work exclusively at our Forest Grove location. Trainees from programs outside of Pacific may work on both the Hillsboro and Forest Grove campuses. All trainees will have the opportunity to engage in clinical work with undergraduate and graduate students. 

Our clients present with a wide-range of concerns and life experiences, and trainees can expect to gain experience supporting clients through life transitions; academic stressors and navigating academic systems; grief and loss; managing changes in health status and disabilities; healing from racial, interpersonal, and other forms of trauma; acute crises; intersecting identity development; navigating familial and other interpersonal relationships; along with other presenting concerns.

Training Activities

Individual Client Services

• 8-11 scheduled individual clients per week for short-term individual therapy.
• Two 30-minute scheduled initial consultations per week that includes triaging client concerns and determining appropriate treatment disposition (e.g., short-term therapy, group therapy, referrals).
• One-hour of crisis/walk-in consultation coverage per week.
• Case management and referral services for clients whose concerns fall outside of our Scope of Practice.

Group Therapy

Group therapy options vary depending on staff availability, clinic demands, and client interest. Possible group offerings include

• Interpersonal Process Groups
• Psychoeducational Skills-Based Groups
• Support Groups

Outreach and Consultation

Our center is committed to community engagement to raise awareness of mental health concerns, participating in prevention efforts, and reaching traditionally underserved populations. Trainees engage in a minimum of one outreach activity each term and are encouraged to engage in more as activities become available that meet trainee interests and style. Trainees will also have the opportunity to develop skills in systemic intervention through a mentored project. We hope for our trainees to apply their passion and fresh eyes to our system to engage in a project focused on improving SCC service to our historically underserved communities on campus.

Supervision and Training Support

• 2-day orientation to our center and staff (~16 hrs/yr)
• 1.5 hours per week of individual supervision with primary supervisor; review of video/audio tape included in supervision (~50 hrs/yr)
• One-hour per week of administrative staff meetings and clinical consultation with the entire SCC staff (~35 hrs/yr)
• Group supervision for racial healing, professional consultation, and developing anti-oppressive practices on a bi-weekly basis (~15 hrs/yr)
• Professional development seminars on a bi-weekly basis on a range of topics pertinent to college mental health (~15 hrs/yr)
• Trainees engage in a case presentation once per semester
• SCC senior staff encourage consultation and operate with an open-door policy to support trainees in skills-acquisition

Logistical Considerations

• Training occurs primarily at the Forest Grove location.
• Clinic operating hours are Monday – Friday 9:00am – 5:00pm in Forest Grove and 10:00am – 6:00pm in Hillsboro. 
  • Outreach programming is occasionally scheduled outside of normal business hours.
  • We require that all staff including trainees be available Wednesday mornings for staff meetings, case consultation, and training activities.
  • There are several clinic closures during the academic year including Thanksgiving break, Winter break (typically mid-December through New Year's Day), and Spring break (typically the last week of March). Please check the Arts & Sciences Calendar for exact dates and note that these dates may not align with your own academic breaks
• Our Clinical Psychology Practicum experience is open to SGP students in their second or third practicum, who have not been in ongoing therapy* at the SCC. 
• Our Counseling Internship experience is open to Lewis & Clark students who have completed their first practicum. Please keep in mind that our training orientation will be held in August prior to the start of your fall semester. 
• Training dates typically are mid-August through May.

Application Process

If you are interested in applying for a training experience at the SCC and meet the aforementioned criteria, please submit your current resume or curriculum vitae and a cover letter expressing your interests in our site to counselingcenter@pacificu.edu for review. We encourage you to apply December-February and interviews typically occur in mid to late February for training beginning in August.  Please add our email address to your contacts list and/or frequently review your spam folder for emails from us, this is particularly important for applicants outside of Pacific.

Questions can be referred to our Training Coordinator, Dr. Jamie Young at counselingcenter@pacificu.edu. We look forward to hearing from you!

* Students from Pacific University's School of Graduate Psychology receive psychotherapy and crisis services from SCC senior staff only. Clinical training staff do not have access to any scheduling or clinical information regarding their peers. More detailed information regarding how we manage our dual role with SGP students is available in the Information for Pacific University Graduate Psychology Students Accessing the Student Counseling Center.