Internship & Training Opportunities

Pacific Lutheran University’s Counseling Services offers a 20-hour a week, internship program that begins August 15th and ends May 31st the following year.  Interns whose schools allow will receive a $250 stipend both Fall and Spring semesters at PLU.  Our internship program provides developing professionals the opportunity to work directly with a college student population.

Open To:  Masters level students in clinical psychology, counseling, psychology, or marriage and family therapy.

Begin and End Dates:  Internship begins August 15th with two weeks of intensive on-boarding before seeing clients.  Internship ends May 31st the following year.

Population:  PLU Counseling Services provides direct in-person service to currently enrolled college students with a wide array of presenting concerns ranging from identity exploration, loss of romantic relationships, and roommate conflicts to serious mental illness.  Students represent their diverse communities and interns will work with individuals across sexual orientation, gender, age, SES, cultural, and other spectra.

We use a stepped care model and provide brief therapy (an average of 8-12 sessions) with opportunities for interns and clients (in consultation together) to go beyond the average number.  Clients have the opportunity for single consults, assistance in connecting to community care, and also ongoing therapy.  Intern clinical sessions in Fall will be typically 50-60 minutes, and then interns in the Spring can try out 30-45 minute sessions, depending on the comfort level of the intern and hours they need toward licensure.

Supervision:  Interns meet 1.5-hours a week with a supervisor, 1-hour a week with a fellow intern and rotating clinical staff in internship seminars, and 1-hour a week for group supervision and case consultation with the entire clinical team.

Duties:  Interns accumulate significant direct clinical hours through intake and ongoing individual therapy with students, co-facilitate workshops and/or groups with a supervisor, design and implement a campus outreach event, participate in campus mental-health and classroom trainings, complete a self-chosen internship project, and participate in staff meetings and scheduled supervisions.  As a part of PLU Counseling Services charting, interns (in consultation with their supervisors) assign diagnoses.  For interns from schools that allow such training experiences, in the second half of the training year interns may participate in 30-45 minute clinical sessions and may also provide triage and emergent care with careful supervision.

Requirements:  Interns must have reliable transportation and be available for a 20-hour work week.  Interns must be available to attend case consultation and staff meetings on Thursdays from 11:00am to 1:30pm.

We have a rolling application process, with applications accepted beginning in December for placement in the following Fall academic-year.  Applications are accepted until our two positions are filled.

To apply, fax or email:

  1.  A cover-letter detailing your desire to contribute to our work with students here at PLU.
  2.  A resume/CV.
  3.  Three (3) written references.

Fax:  (253) 536-5124
To:  PLU Counseling Services
Attention:  Dr. Elizabeth Barton, Assistant Director for Training

Email:  bartonla@plu.edu or counseling@plu.edu

Alternatively, mail items to:
PLU Counseling Services
Attention:  Dr. Elizabeth Barton
Tacoma, WA 98447-0003

Questions?  Phone:  (253) 535-7206