Frequently Asked Questions

Our Perspective
   Within our trainee/internship, we invite you to begin, continue on, and/or return to the journey of finding your inner truth. We encourage you to live from that truth with love for both yourself and others.
   We invite all participants at PTI into a community where each seeks to fulfill his potential through participation with others.
   We encourage you to develop an attitude of unconditional fascination for your work and for the human beings you treat. Within the frame of respect both for the client and for Self, each student is encouraged to develop his/her own therapeutic style. Inviting, following and working with process is also taught and practiced. We teach a variety of therapeutic enactments, how to work in various mediums, and how to integrate the numerous counseling models, including the basics of the process model of therapy, into a psychotherapy you can understand, own, and use effectively. At PTI we invite clients, students, colleagues and ourselves to adopt a life direction of self-empowerment.
   You will also be trained in the clinical skills of this profession, including appropriate assessment and diagnosis, goals and interventions. You will be introduced to the concepts of treatment plans, appropriate referrals and crisis intervention. Learning to address legal and ethical issues will be an ongoing part of this program.

Employment
   A PTI intern is employed part-time. You will see clients in front of the mirror during the mirror training sessions and on a one-to-one basis outside of the mirror.
   You will be trained towards being able to handle yourself in the private practice setting. You will be provided with keys, business cards, office supplies, office equipment, marketing support, and voicemail. You will learn to sign up for rooms, negotiate fees for the institute, maintain client files, assess and screen clients, and communicate with insurance companies.

Acquiring Counseling Hours
   We also provide offsite programs for trainees and interns who want to accumulate more counseling hours than the number of paying clients they might acquire on site.

Wages
   We believe that our interns/trainees should get paid for services, if possible. Therefore, payment is made to PTI interns and trainees for their work with paying clients. Thus, this can be a paid internship program. Interns and trainees are responsible for generating the paying clients they see. PTI provides training, support, and a few paying clients in this process.
   Fees paid for an intern's services to clients range from $7 to $66 per session. Interns also receive 2/3 of the income generated from groups and from any paying offsite programs. 75% of the income of self generated offsite contracts is paid to the intern/trainee. All wages are subject to Compensation, Unemployment Insurance, State Disability, State and Federal income taxes.

Malpractice
    Although PTI carries its own professional and premise liability policies, you must also carry a current malpractice policy while in this program.
      Individual Supervision: The group experience is the preferred approach to supervision at PTI. Individual supervision is occasionally provided on an as-needed basis. If you are a trainee, check with your university to see if individual supervision is a requirement of a practicum site. If it is, you may find a way to get this requirement met another way.
      Supervision in the mirror: The BBS requires different ratios of supervision hours to client hours for trainees, interns, and social work associates. Keep up to date on the ratio that applies to you. Supervision hours are signed off weekly on the form provided by the BBS. Mirror training hours are signed off weekly as follows:
         Group supervision: 2 hours
         Counseling/psychotherapy: 1 hour
         Training: 1 or 2 hours
         Additional training viewing videos: 1 hour
      Emergency Supervision: If you need extra supervision, are under stress, or are confronted by an emergency, immediate individual supervision is available. ounseling hours faster and get some of the individual supervision you need.

Some of the Concepts we Teach
   In working with licensed and pre-licensed therapists over the last 25 years, we have noticed that therapists want to know conceptual answers about therapy, clinical answers about how to do therapy, practical answers about how to deal with therapeutic situations in which they find themselves, and attitudinal/perceptual answers about how to be with their clients while staying in harmony with themselves while inviting others to heal.
   In our training program we help you discover concepts that work for you. We explore techniques and procedures for clinical work, practice down-to-earth techniques while in sessions with clients, and help you find harmony with yourself while working with your clients.
   We provide you with an opportunity to gain understanding, develop skills, and be in well-being. Here are some of the questions and issues addressed in the mirror training:
     How do I stay out of my own resistance while working with my client's resistance?
     How do I work with the system without becoming part of it?
     What do I do when my countertransference issues arrive?
     What are my jobs as a therapist?
     How does therapy work?
     How do I set the tone for my sessions?
     How do I join the client?
     How do I tell my truth to the client?
     How do I create a safe working environment for my client?
     How do I get my clients to trust me? What do I do if I do not trust my clients?
     What happens if I don't know what to do?
     What are my limits around drug use, etc?
     What if the client does not agree with me, or does not want to do what I suggest?
     How do I do case consultations, treatment plans, case notes?
     How do I set and enforce my limits?
     How do I know which issue to work with?
     How do I get to the issues that I guess are important?
     What do I do when I get lost and don't know what to do next?
     How do I handle no-shows, cancellations, non-payments, broken contracts?
     How do I handle confidentiality, dangerousness?
     How do I work therapeutically with resistance, anger, sadness, trauma?
     What techniques do I use to deepen, expand, resolve, complete, and heal?
     How do I decide whether to work in body, mind, or spirit with the client?
     What mediums should I use?
     Which counseling theory works best with which presenting issue?
     How do I connect to myself?
     How do I learn to transcend myself and stay connected to my client?
     How should I view resistance, dishonesty?
     How do I stay mindful under pressure?
     How do I get beyond the needs of my client?
     How do I know when the work is completed?
     When do I terminate therapy?

Dual Internships
   It is common to be doing an internship at another site concurrent with this one, and we recommend it. Having a variety of supervisors adds to your perspective of the mental health field.

Additional Trainings
   The following trainings are free to those enrolled in our programs. Participants not enrolled in PTI programs pay an external fee for these trainings.
      Marketing Class
    This fifteen-hour class is designed to teach important marketing skills for generating clients as well as how to develop and set up groups and classes. You are invited to connect with your enthusiasm about your work, and to make that visible to the community. The hands-on practical approach provides an opportunity to begin to teach yourself the interpersonal skills necessary to have a successful private practice once you are licensed. During each meeting you are presented with tools for marketing yourself, and are invited to give yourself an assignment to complete before the next class. Upon completion of the class, you may join with the monthly marketing support group.
      Specialty Trainings
   Occasional Friday evening trainings are offered free to all staff at PTI. They allow us uninterrupted time to focus on a specific subject area, such as crisis intervention, imagery, breathwork, psychodrama, play therapy, working with groups, etc.

Multimedia Library.    We often video and audio tape the trainings that are done at PTI. They are available for you to check out.

Continuing Education
   PTI is a CEU provider for the California Board of Behavioral Sciences . We offer continuing education units to licensed Marriage, Family and Child Counselors, Clinical Social and Workers.
    PTI interns are encouraged to attend our Continuing Education Classes. Fees are covered by the tuition payment.

For even more information about the details of our practicum site, click here.

This agency meets all requirements of the California Board of Behavioral Sciences. Trainers and supervisors are qualified to supervise 3000 MFT intern hours, 1000 associate Clinical Social Worker hours, and 750 pre-graduate Ph.D. hours

If interested in this internship, please or email us at pti@processes.org or call Don Hadlock at 408/358-2218x444.