Speaker 1: Thanks for checking out this video. I'm really excited to be talking about my first practicum experience, and if you don't know what practicum or externship is, then you should watch the video that I did on that. But now I am a third-year clinical psychology PhD student, so I'm completely done with that first rotation, and it was so so special to me, so I'll be talking about the who, what, where, when, and how of that practicum experience, and then in the future I can do a video on the current practicum rotation that I'm doing. Please be sure to like this video and subscribe so that you can stay up to date on my content. Alright, so let's get into it. During my first clinical training experience, who was I seeing? I actually had a range of clients, but the majority were English or Spanish-speaking Latinx-identified folks, and I'll talk a little bit more about the where and the clinic that I was working at, but most of my clients were people who wanted to have their identity addressed in therapy, or they wanted to work with a therapist who had a shared identity with them. And I am Latina, and I'm fluent in Spanish, so I was able to provide services in both languages. I also saw some clients who were not Latinx-identified, and they were just clients from the general clinic who happened to need someone, and I was available. My caseload was about four to five clients at a time. I was spending about 20 hours a week doing all this clinical work, including the training, including notes, progress notes for the sessions that I was doing, supervision, etc. So I actually think the who question is the most impactful for me because I was able to work with clients who had a shared identity with me, and especially for the Spanish-speaking clients, I knew that I was providing a service that they might not be able to get otherwise if there weren't Spanish-speaking therapists available. So as a student therapist, I was super excited to be able to do therapy in English and Spanish, but I was also terrified. Even though I'm fluent in Spanish and I've been speaking it since I was a kid, I felt like the moment I went into a therapy session, I was going to forget everything that I knew and blank. But that didn't happen, and I actually really bonded with my clients. I saw individuals, I saw couples, and they were all different ages, and they also had a range of presenting problems, which is the reason why they came into therapy. Some of the clients were coming in for family-related issues, some were coming for anxiety, depression, etc., and they had all different ranges of functioning. So some were severely depressed and others were doing okay but wanted to cover some things and go deeper, learn about themselves, etc. I think another important who question for this clinical training year was my supervisor. Who was my supervisor? I had a Latina Spanish-speaking licensed psychologist as my supervisor who was amazing, and it's really not that common that you would get supervision in Spanish even if you're actually doing therapy in Spanish. So a lot of student therapists who are out training at different sites end up providing services in Spanish if they do speak the language, but they're usually working with an English-speaking supervisor who doesn't know what's going on in the sessions. If they're watching recordings, that's not going to be very useful to them because they don't know the language. So the supervision is much better when the supervisor is also Spanish-speaking or just speaks the same language as the therapist and client because then they can see what's going on, offer support, and I think it's just a better experience overall. So I was super super blessed to have that opportunity and I made an amazing relationship with my supervisor and I was kind of spoiled. I feel like I felt really seen as a student therapist, as a Latina student therapist, because I could just feel comfortable with my supervisor and we talked about cultural issues that might be impacting my clients and I also felt like the work I was doing was really gratifying. I got to do things like write letters to my clients' lawyers about immigration cases, things that I think are so so important but not widely available enough and that kind of leads me to the what was I doing with these clients. So I was seeing them for therapy, individual or couples therapy, once or twice a week and I was doing all types of different things. So my supervisor was very flexible and was open to what I thought would be best for my clients and of course I took a bunch of courses in different types of therapies and what the evidence-based treatments are for certain disorders so that I could know what the best next step is and of course consulting with my supervisor about what a client may need. So I was able to dabble in cognitive behavioral therapy, psychodynamic therapy, compassion-focused therapy, and do lots of different things with my clients and do a lot of trial and error with them. So what they didn't like I could remove, what they did like we can do more of. So I was really able to learn so much in that training year. The when was just my second year of my doctoral program. In the first year my program is completely course heavy and you don't really do that much research or clinical work but you are taking courses that are going to prepare you for clinical training and then while you're in that first training year you're also taking courses in different types of therapy like CBT, psychodynamic, etc. so that you can use those principles that you're learning in class with the clients that you're working with. So throughout my second year I was working at this clinic, the Latinx focused track, and I started in the summer of my first year and then continued to the summer of my second year. Now to the where. So unfortunately my first clinical training year was completely remote because of a global pandemic and it turned out to be okay. I think that I was able to bond with clients really well and do really wonderful work, learn a ton of things, and see clients who might not normally be able to go to therapy weekly because they live far, because they work, because of whatever other reasons. So it did offer flexibility to clients but I would have, if not for the pandemic, I would have been going in person to the clinic and doing my therapy there, in person, doing my notes there, getting supervision there, all of that. For my year it was all on Zoom. Sometimes I had to do just audio phone sessions because my clients weren't able to access the video for whatever reason. So kind of a lot of technical difficulties that I had to troubleshoot with them but all in all I was able to connect with them. It does feel kind of crazy that I worked with some of these people for the entire year and I was never able to meet them. It was also really interesting at the end of the training year to see how hard it was to part ways with the clients even though I'd never met them. And it can be kind of emotional to end therapy, especially if you have a good experience and a good relationship with your therapist. And it was my first time terminating with clients because it was my first time working with clients in that capacity. So it was hard on me but I feel like I'll remember these clients forever because they were my first ones. So overall such a beautiful experience and I think the piece about being able to do therapy in Spanish, being able to work with Latinx identified folks, and talk about our identities in the therapy sessions was so, so, so powerful. And I hope that there can be more of us in the field because it's really needed. So the last one is how. How was I able to see clients for therapy if I'm just a doctoral student? So the way that it works in doctoral programs, clinical psychology doctoral programs, is you do have to see clients for therapy and see clients for assessments under the supervision of a licensed psychologist. So we are accruing hours but we see clients on our own. Some sessions are recorded at my first clinical practicum site, all sessions had to be recorded on Zoom. And if we were in person they would also be recorded in person so that you can play back the video with your supervisor. So you are able to provide services to clients, real clients, that have real issues that they need to address, that they want to address in therapy. And they know that they're receiving therapy from a student therapist, they know that their sessions are recorded, of course they consent to this, they know that we're in training and that we're going to be meeting with our supervisor to make sure that we can provide the best care possible. So in terms of supervision, normally students have one hour of individual supervision per week and two or more hours of group supervision per week. The amount of supervision is supposed to vary by how many clients you have but it was three hours of supervision per week for that first year. And during individual it was the opportunity to go through case by case and ask my questions, show video, talk about what the therapy experience has been like for me with my supervisor. And like I said I was able to form a really great bond with her. And in group supervision it was really different but also super cool because I had colleagues who were also Spanish speaking and whether they were Latinx identified or not, we did supervision in Spanish for both individual and group. And we had the opportunity to do presentations and teach each other different types of therapy techniques. We also had opportunities to learn from our supervisor, to watch each other's video, all of which clients do consent to when they sign up for services with us. But all of that was, that's kind of the how we're able to do that. Lots of people are like how are you seeing clients? Like are you getting paid? How are you able to see clients if you're not licensed? The clients may or may not pay at the given clinical sites that are offered. At that site clients were paying a low fee because it is a community mental health clinic, but we did not get paid. And some clinical sites do offer stipends. The one that I'm at now does, but generally speaking we're not working there, we're training there. So we definitely have to make sure that we're providing the best care possible. And the supervisors are evaluating us on a regular basis. And they do step in when there are issues to cover such as risks. So for suicide risk assessments or things like that, we did have on-call supervisors to call if we needed anything, if there was any crisis. So that was my first clinical practicum experience. I loved it. I still think about my clients. Like I said, I don't think I'll ever forget them. And I don't think that there's anything more impactful for a first-generation Latina student therapist in grad school to be able to work with other Latinx folks, colleagues, supervisors, clients, and just know that the culture was considered at every part of the treatment. And I learned so much from that. And now I do see clients in English and Spanish at my current site, but it's totally different. And I will do another video about my current site. Let me know in the comments if there are specific questions that you want to know about this site or my current site. And if there is anything that I didn't cover, I can totally record another video about it. I can talk more about supervision or other things that are related to practicum. Thank you so, so much for watching this video. Please like, and subscribe and check back in for my next video.