For Graduate Level Trainees

Current graduate students can apply for master’s level practica/internships, doctoral level practica and pre-doctoral internships. In addition, Allendale offers postdoctoral training for students who have recently graduated and are seeking licensure as a clinical psychologist. All trainees receive supervision from licensed psychologists and clinicians who have been trained and work within the REStArT^SM Model. Trainees work primarily with outpatient clients with opportunities in our Therapeutic Day School.

Allendale’s model, the Relational Re-Enactment Systems Approach to Treatment (REStArT^SM) is a comprehensive child and adolescent mental health treatment model. Treatment is based on youth’s “conflict cycles” (i.e., relational trauma), which are defined by their re-enactments of their attachment experiences in the present. By engaging all systems involved with a youth and the experiences the members of those systems have with him/her, the treatment team can develop an understanding of how the youth sees themselves, others and their relationships. Plans for treatment, then, are driven by this conceptualization which is unique to each youth, but created within a model that uses attachment theory, object relations theory, an understanding of the impact of trauma and neurobiological underpinnings to organize the youth’s patterns into diagnostic categories. These plans are developed to interrupt this cycle, which gives youth a chance to experience the feelings that have been inaccessible to them because they were being acted-out. The interruption of their re-enactment also gives them a chance to find new ways of relating and responding. The REStArT^SM model has thirteen principles that capture the philosophy, theory and practice behind the approach. These principles guide the treatment process and implementation with the goal of developing and executing a successful life plan.