Our APA Accredited Postdoctoral Fellowship Program

We offer an APA-accredited traditional practice postdoctoral residency program in Clinical Psychology. Along with the core training program curriculum, our traditional practice postdoctoral residency provides opportunities for focused training in one of four emphasis areas/major areas of study: (1) Adult CBT/DBT, (2) Behavioral Medicine, (3) Child and Adolescent Psychiatry (CAP), which includes TIES for Families-South Bay, and (4) Community Treatment/Trauma.

APA Office of Program Consultation and Accreditation
750 First St, NE
Washington, DC 20002-4242
Telephone: (202) 336-5979
TDD/TTY: (202) 336-6123
Fax: (202) 336-5978

Postdoctoral Residency Admissions, Support and Initial Placement Data

THE POSTDOCTORAL FELLOWSHIP PROGRAM IS NOT RECRUITING FOR THE 2024/2025 TRAINING YEAR.  APPLICATIONS ARE NOT BEING ACCEPTED.  

Our Practicum Program

We are a field-placement (extern) training site as part of an agreement between the Los Angeles County Department of Mental Health (LAC DMH) Student Professional Development Program and various local educational programs.  

Our Mission

The mission of the Psychology Division at Harbor-UCLA Medical Center is to provide quality, patient-centered care, education, and training.  Fostering a learning and training environment steeped in the Scientist-Practitioner model, the Psychology Division utilizes best practices for conducting and disseminating cutting-edge interventions and scholarly products within an environment characterized by collaborative learning, scholarship, and an emphasis on diversity, equity, and inclusivity.

The Psychology Division is deeply committed to building and maintaining a climate of inclusion and equity for all individuals.  In addition to institutional policies put into place by Los Angeles County to ensure an inclusive and equitable climate, the Harbor-UCLA postdoctoral training program has convened a special Intersectional Inclusion, Diversity, and Equity Accountability (IIDEA) work group to guide programmatic efforts in systematically recruiting and retaining diverse residents, staff, and faculty into the program.  The IIDEA work group (comprised of both program faculty and psychology fellows/residents) meets monthly to assess and discuss ways to improve programmatic climate with respect to inclusion and equity.

For more information about the IIDEA workshop and programmatic initiatives being implemented, please refer to the work group’s Mission, Vision, and Values statement and Key Driver Diagram (which outlines the continuous quality improvement plan for developing and maintaining an inclusive and equitable climate for program trainees, staff, and faculty).

Our History

The postdoctoral training program began in 1981 and received its APA accreditation in 1997.  Our fellowship program was one of the first three APA-accredited postdoctoral fellowships in the United States.

The Setting

Our APA-Accredited Postdoctoral Fellowship is funded and sponsored by the Los Angeles County Department of Mental Health and operates in a setting that is rich in the traditions of public service, education, and research.  Harbor-UCLA Medical Center is a publicly funded teaching hospital owned and operated by the Los Angeles County Department of Health Services and affiliated with the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA.  Its service population of over 2 million people is economically, culturally, and ethnically diverse, and the poor and under-served comprise the majority of Harbor-UCLA’s census.

Harbor-UCLA is a tertiary medical center and Level I trauma center providing emergency and trauma care and a full spectrum of medical and surgical inpatient and ambulatory primary and specialty care.

The Harbor-UCLA Psychology Division is academically housed in the Psychiatry Department which consists of UCLA  faculty members and volunteer psychiatrists and psychologists from the community; the Psychiatry Department has had a psychiatry residency program in place since 1960 and also has a child psychiatry fellowship program.  Through the Los Angeles County Department of Mental Health, Harbor-UCLA also serves as a social work internship training site.

All ambulatory mental health services at Harbor-UCLA are funded and operated by the Los Angeles County Department of Mental Health.

The Harbor-UCLA campus is also home to the Lundquist Institute for Biomedical Innovation  (formerly the Los Angeles Biomedical Institute). Through its affiliation with Harbor-UCLA, Harbor-UCLA faculty have the opportunity to secure extramural funding and conduct research in various areas.