The Counseling Center currently offers Pre-doctoral training.
Training Program Contact Information:
Email: afrydm23@pratt.edu
Phone: 718.687.5356
Pratt Institute of Art Counseling Center Pre-Doctoral Externship
Location:
Brooklyn, New York
Population Served:
18-25
Mandatory Days:
Friday – all day
Appropriate for:
Third Externship
Orientation:
Psychodynamic
The Counseling Center at the Pratt Institute offers services to its diverse and international community of approximately 5,000 undergraduate and graduate students studying in the Schools of Art, Design, Architecture, Liberal Arts and Sciences, and Information. We are currently staffed by six full-time psychologists, a part-time psychiatrist and three postdoctoral fellows in psychology. Our practice is informed by humanistic, developmental, psychodynamic, and cognitive behavioral theoretical orientations. Counseling Services are located in the main Brooklyn campus in the historic neighborhood of Clinton Hill.
Overview:
The pre-doctoral externship program in psychology offers four part-time (16 hours) externship positions for the 2025-2026 academic year.
Externs provide clinical care to students including intake consultation, individual therapy, case management, crisis intervention and urgent care, and referrals. As an extern, you will have a voice in designing your caseload based on experience level and interest. The majority of the externs’ time is spent providing individual psychotherapy under supervision, and the average caseload is 6 to 10 patients weekly. Externs participate together with our postdoctoral fellows in weekly reading and clinical seminars, on topics ranging from how to think about time as a function of clinical work with young adults, to the relationship between the individual and the social environment, to the study of the creative process. The externship includes 1 hour of individual supervision, 1.5 hours of group supervision (clinical seminar), 1 hour of multidisciplinary disposition team meeting, and 1.5 hours of didactics (reading seminar) per week. Additional clinical opportunities such as running groups and workshops are also possible with an additional 1 hour of weekly group supervision.
Externs have an opportunity to do goal-oriented work as well as more intensive work depending on students’ clinical need and presentation.
Preference is given to students who are entering their 3rd or 4th year of clinical training at the start of the externship and have some prior clinical experience. Given the psychoanalytic nature of the externship we are especially interested in candidates who have a strong interest in applying psychoanalytic ideas to working in a university based counseling center.
To Apply:
Please send application materials electronically in one pdf file including CV, cover letter and three reference letters to Antonia Frydman at afrydm23@pratt.edu.
General information about externship site:
Director of the Program: Caroline Kasnakian, Psy.D.
Associate Training Director: Antonia Frydman, Ph.D.
Start Date: TBD/August 2026
End Date: TBD/May 2027
Structure:
How many hours a week are expected of externs?: 16 hrs
Specialty tracks: N/A
# of externs to be accepted for 2025-2026: 4
Minimum level of readiness: Prior clinical experience, 3rd or 4th year doctoral students preferred.
Preferences: Students interested in working psychodynamically in a university counseling center
Do you provide a stipend?: No
Interviews:
When do you expect to begin interviews?: January 2026 (date TBA)
Interview process: In compliance with APPIC guidelines for the 2025-2026 internship match, interviews will occur remotely.
What application materials are required: CV, letter of interest, 3 reference letters in one PDF.
Intervention and Assessment:
Intervention training experiences offered: Weekly didactics seminars, disposition meetings for intake assessments, intake assessments based on experience level; crisis intervention when clinically needed
Estimate average number of individual patients that students will carry: 6 to 10 individual therapy patients weekly; group therapy and/or workshops with additional supervision
Assessment training experiences commonly offered: Intakes, crisis assessment
Expected number of full assessment batteries completed during externship: None. No testing experience offered
Estimate # of integrated assessment reports per year: None
If offering Rorschach, which scoring systems used: N/A
Supervision:
Estimate hours/week of individual supervision: 1
Estimated hours/week of group supervision: 2
Estimated hour/week of didactics: 3
Estimated co-therapy hours with supervisors: N/A
Context of didactics: Reading seminar, clinical seminar on adolescence, group case disposition supervision. all weekly
Estimated informal open door “curbside” supervision: Yes
Describe supervision: Weekly individual and group supervision for individual therapy cases; weekly group supervision for group therapy
Specify if observation occurs during intervention, assessment, consultation: Live in person when needed
Support:
If you have only one extern, would you be to have the extern participate in a peer support consortium with other sites- live or “SKYPE”?: N/A
Is the agency readily accessible through public transportation?: Yes
Wheelchair accessible: Yes
Are home visits required as part of the trainee’s duties?: No
Is a transportation stipend provided?: No