Mental Health Therapist Internships
Mental health therapist internships give university students, recent graduates, and early-career switchers hands-on clinical experience, mentorship from working mental health therapists, and, at many employers, a path toward a full-time offer. Openings are concentrated across {{top_industries_phrase}}, with LiveWell Homecare Agency, Insight Counseling, and Northern Utah Counseling among the employers posting roles now.
Find Mental Health Therapist InternshipsOverview
Showing 5 of 10+ Mental Health Therapist Internships
CTSA is seeking compassionate, motivated graduate-level counseling, social work, and psychology trainees for a paid clinical internship focused on trauma, anxiety, and integrative mental health care.
About The Center for Trauma, Stress, and Anxiety, LLC
The Center for Trauma, Stress, and Anxiety, LLC, is a growing multidisciplinary group mental health practice with a mission to be the premier integrative health and wellness resource for trauma and anxiety in our community. We have three locations (Bel Air, Nottingham/Perry Hall, and Cockeysville/Hunt Valley). We partner with our sister practice, Get Centered Wellness, in Bel Air to offer vibrational sound healing, therapeutic yoga, reiki, meditation, psychedelic assisted therapy, intensives, retreats, and more.
We are looking to meet the growing needs of our communities and add to our talented and passionate team. If you are looking to be part of an exceptional collective of healers, focused on treating trauma and anxiety in an integrative, collaborative setting, you're in the right place!
Description
Graduate Clinical Internship – Counseling, Social Work & Psychology
About CTSA
The Center for Trauma, Stress, and Anxiety (CTSA) is a growing outpatient mental health practice specializing in trauma, anxiety, stress-related concerns, and integrative mental health care across the lifespan.
We believe becoming an excellent therapist takes more than completing graduate coursework and accumulating clinical hours. It takes good supervision. Exposure to different ways of thinking. Opportunities to ask questions. Honest feedback. Time to reflect on your own reactions in the therapy room. And a clinical community where you're allowed to still be learning.
That's what we're trying to create for our interns. CTSA is currently accepting applications for a small number of graduate clinical internship positions for students in counseling, social work, psychology, and related mental health programs. We anticipate accepting 2 interns, allowing us to provide a highly involved training experience rather than treating interns simply as additional providers.
The Internship Experience
Interns at CTSA are members of the clinical team, but we don't expect you to walk in already knowing how to do this work. You'll gradually build your clinical responsibilities while receiving supervision, consultation, and structured learning experiences designed to help you connect what you've learned in graduate school to what actually happens in the therapy room.
Your experience may include:
- Individual psychotherapy
- Intake and diagnostic assessment
- Treatment planning and case conceptualization
- Clinical documentation and medical necessity
- Trauma- and anxiety-focused treatment
- Exposure to relational, somatic, and integrative approaches
- Individual clinical supervision
- Case consultation and peer learning
- Clinical seminars and professional development
- Journal Club and discussion of current clinical literature
- Opportunities to observe and learn from experienced clinicians
- Gradually increasing independence as your skills and confidence develop
Interns begin with a limited caseload and gradually increase their clinical responsibilities based on readiness, supervision, and program requirements. Our goal isn't simply to help you accumulate direct clinical hours. It's to help you start becoming the therapist you want to be.
A Structured Training Program
CTSA's internship includes structured clinical education alongside your direct client work.
Interns participate in learning experiences focused on topics such as:
- Therapeutic presence and use of self
- Case conceptualization and treatment planning
- The therapeutic alliance
- Rupture and repair
- Shame and compassion
- Anxiety and exposure-based treatment
- Trauma foundations
- Attachment and relational patterns
- Cultural humility and working across difference
- Integrative mental health
- Spirituality and meaning in psychotherapy
- Complementary approaches including EMDR, somatic work, IFS, yoga, and psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy
- Professional identity and development as a therapist
You'll also have opportunities to think about some of the harder questions that don't always fit neatly into graduate coursework:
- What do you do when a client isn't getting better?
- How do you know when you're working harder than your client?
- What happens when you feel responsible for fixing someone's suffering?
- How do you repair a relationship after something goes wrong in therapy?
- How do you stay present with pain without rushing to make it disappear?
These are skills clinicians develop over time. We want to start those conversations early.
Trauma, Anxiety & Integrative Mental Health
CTSA specializes in trauma, stress, anxiety, and related concerns. Interns interested in these areas will have opportunities to develop a strong clinical foundation while learning from clinicians with different specialties and approaches.
CTSA also collaborates with our sister organization, Get Centered Wellness, which provides integrative and experiential services including intensives, retreats, somatic practices, mindfulness, breathwork, and psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy.
Interns may have opportunities for exposure to these approaches as part of their broader professional development, while their primary internship experience remains grounded in outpatient psychotherapy, supervision, ethical practice, and development of core clinical competencies.
Supervision & Mentorship
Supervision is a central part of the internship. We want you to bring more than case updates.
Bring the client you don't understand.
Bring the intervention that didn't work.
Bring the session you keep thinking about.
Bring the moment when you weren't sure what to say.
Bring your questions about diagnosis, boundaries, treatment planning, therapeutic relationships, and your own reactions in the room.
Learning how to use supervision well is itself an important clinical skill, and we'll help you develop it.
Compensation
This is a paid graduate clinical internship. Interns are compensated for completed direct clinical service hours according to the following structure:
Clinical hours 1–10 per week: $15 per completed clinical hour- Clinical hours 11–15 per week: $20 per completed clinical hour above 10 hours
Compensation is processed through CTSA's standard payroll system. Interns should expect to commit approximately 20 total hours per week to the internship, including clinical work, supervision, documentation, training, meetings, consultation, and other internship responsibilities. Direct clinical hours are expected to be between 10-12 hours per week.
Who We're Looking For
We're looking for graduate students who are serious about learning how to become excellent therapists. Strong candidates tend to be:
- Curious and reflective
- Warm and relational
- Open to feedback
- Comfortable admitting when they don't know something
- Reliable and professionally responsible
- Interested in understanding clients beyond symptoms and diagnoses
- Willing to examine their own reactions and assumptions
- Interested in trauma, anxiety, relational, somatic, or integrative approaches
- Able to balance increasing clinical responsibility with graduate program requirements
- Interested in being part of a clinical community rather than simply completing required internship hours
Prior experience in trauma treatment, EMDR, somatic therapy, or other specialty approaches is not expected. We would much rather work with someone who is curious, thoughtful, and eager to learn.
Qualifications
Applicants must:
- Be currently enrolled in a graduate program in Counseling, Social Work, Clinical Psychology, or a related mental health field
- Be eligible for clinical internship placement through their academic institution
- Meet their graduate program's requirements for beginning clinical fieldwork
- Demonstrate strong written and verbal communication skills
- Be able to maintain professional, ethical, documentation, and confidentiality standards
- Be able to commit approximately 16-20 hours per week to the internship
- Be able to participate consistently in supervision and required internship training activities
What Happens After Internship?
We intentionally think beyond the internship year. CTSA is building a professional development pathway that can extend from graduate training provisional licensure independent licensure specialization supervision, training, and clinical leadership.
When there's a strong mutual fit and an appropriate position is available, interns may be considered for employment with CTSA following graduation and licensure.
There is no guarantee of employment after internship. But we hope to train clinicians well enough that, when the fit is right, continuing together is an obvious conversation to have.
Interested in Training at CTSA?
We're selective about internship placements because we invest significant time in the clinicians we train.
We're not looking for someone who already has everything figured out.
We're looking for someone who is ready to learn, willing to be challenged, interested in understanding themselves as part of the therapeutic process, and excited to begin developing their own clinical identity.
If that sounds like the kind of internship experience you're looking for, we'd like to hear from you.
Salary
$15 - $20 per hour
CTSA is seeking compassionate, motivated graduate-level counseling, social work, and psychology trainees for a paid clinical internship focused on trauma, anxiety, and integrative mental health care.
About The Center for Trauma, Stress, and Anxiety, LLC
The Center for Trauma, Stress, and Anxiety, LLC, is a growing multidisciplinary group mental health practice with a mission to be the premier integrative health and wellness resource for trauma and anxiety in our community. We have three locations (Bel Air, Nottingham/Perry Hall, and Cockeysville/Hunt Valley). We partner with our sister practice, Get Centered Wellness, in Bel Air to offer vibrational sound healing, therapeutic yoga, reiki, meditation, psychedelic assisted therapy, intensives, retreats, and more.
We are looking to meet the growing needs of our communities and add to our talented and passionate team. If you are looking to be part of an exceptional collective of healers, focused on treating trauma and anxiety in an integrative, collaborative setting, you're in the right place!
Description
Graduate Clinical Internship – Counseling, Social Work & Psychology
About CTSA
The Center for Trauma, Stress, and Anxiety (CTSA) is a growing outpatient mental health practice specializing in trauma, anxiety, stress-related concerns, and integrative mental health care across the lifespan.
We believe becoming an excellent therapist takes more than completing graduate coursework and accumulating clinical hours. It takes good supervision. Exposure to different ways of thinking. Opportunities to ask questions. Honest feedback. Time to reflect on your own reactions in the therapy room. And a clinical community where you're allowed to still be learning.
That's what we're trying to create for our interns. CTSA is currently accepting applications for a small number of graduate clinical internship positions for students in counseling, social work, psychology, and related mental health programs. We anticipate accepting 2 interns, allowing us to provide a highly involved training experience rather than treating interns simply as additional providers.
The Internship Experience
Interns at CTSA are members of the clinical team, but we don't expect you to walk in already knowing how to do this work. You'll gradually build your clinical responsibilities while receiving supervision, consultation, and structured learning experiences designed to help you connect what you've learned in graduate school to what actually happens in the therapy room.
Your experience may include:
- Individual psychotherapy
- Intake and diagnostic assessment
- Treatment planning and case conceptualization
- Clinical documentation and medical necessity
- Trauma- and anxiety-focused treatment
- Exposure to relational, somatic, and integrative approaches
- Individual clinical supervision
- Case consultation and peer learning
- Clinical seminars and professional development
- Journal Club and discussion of current clinical literature
- Opportunities to observe and learn from experienced clinicians
- Gradually increasing independence as your skills and confidence develop
Interns begin with a limited caseload and gradually increase their clinical responsibilities based on readiness, supervision, and program requirements. Our goal isn't simply to help you accumulate direct clinical hours. It's to help you start becoming the therapist you want to be.
A Structured Training Program
CTSA's internship includes structured clinical education alongside your direct client work.
Interns participate in learning experiences focused on topics such as:
- Therapeutic presence and use of self
- Case conceptualization and treatment planning
- The therapeutic alliance
- Rupture and repair
- Shame and compassion
- Anxiety and exposure-based treatment
- Trauma foundations
- Attachment and relational patterns
- Cultural humility and working across difference
- Integrative mental health
- Spirituality and meaning in psychotherapy
- Complementary approaches including EMDR, somatic work, IFS, yoga, and psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy
- Professional identity and development as a therapist
You'll also have opportunities to think about some of the harder questions that don't always fit neatly into graduate coursework:
- What do you do when a client isn't getting better?
- How do you know when you're working harder than your client?
- What happens when you feel responsible for fixing someone's suffering?
- How do you repair a relationship after something goes wrong in therapy?
- How do you stay present with pain without rushing to make it disappear?
These are skills clinicians develop over time. We want to start those conversations early.
Trauma, Anxiety & Integrative Mental Health
CTSA specializes in trauma, stress, anxiety, and related concerns. Interns interested in these areas will have opportunities to develop a strong clinical foundation while learning from clinicians with different specialties and approaches.
CTSA also collaborates with our sister organization, Get Centered Wellness, which provides integrative and experiential services including intensives, retreats, somatic practices, mindfulness, breathwork, and psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy.
Interns may have opportunities for exposure to these approaches as part of their broader professional development, while their primary internship experience remains grounded in outpatient psychotherapy, supervision, ethical practice, and development of core clinical competencies.
Supervision & Mentorship
Supervision is a central part of the internship. We want you to bring more than case updates.
Bring the client you don't understand.
Bring the intervention that didn't work.
Bring the session you keep thinking about.
Bring the moment when you weren't sure what to say.
Bring your questions about diagnosis, boundaries, treatment planning, therapeutic relationships, and your own reactions in the room.
Learning how to use supervision well is itself an important clinical skill, and we'll help you develop it.
Compensation
This is a paid graduate clinical internship. Interns are compensated for completed direct clinical service hours according to the following structure:
Clinical hours 1–10 per week: $15 per completed clinical hour- Clinical hours 11–15 per week: $20 per completed clinical hour above 10 hours
Compensation is processed through CTSA's standard payroll system. Interns should expect to commit approximately 20 total hours per week to the internship, including clinical work, supervision, documentation, training, meetings, consultation, and other internship responsibilities. Direct clinical hours are expected to be between 10-12 hours per week.
Who We're Looking For
We're looking for graduate students who are serious about learning how to become excellent therapists. Strong candidates tend to be:
- Curious and reflective
- Warm and relational
- Open to feedback
- Comfortable admitting when they don't know something
- Reliable and professionally responsible
- Interested in understanding clients beyond symptoms and diagnoses
- Willing to examine their own reactions and assumptions
- Interested in trauma, anxiety, relational, somatic, or integrative approaches
- Able to balance increasing clinical responsibility with graduate program requirements
- Interested in being part of a clinical community rather than simply completing required internship hours
Prior experience in trauma treatment, EMDR, somatic therapy, or other specialty approaches is not expected. We would much rather work with someone who is curious, thoughtful, and eager to learn.
Qualifications
Applicants must:
- Be currently enrolled in a graduate program in Counseling, Social Work, Clinical Psychology, or a related mental health field
- Be eligible for clinical internship placement through their academic institution
- Meet their graduate program's requirements for beginning clinical fieldwork
- Demonstrate strong written and verbal communication skills
- Be able to maintain professional, ethical, documentation, and confidentiality standards
- Be able to commit approximately 16-20 hours per week to the internship
- Be able to participate consistently in supervision and required internship training activities
What Happens After Internship?
We intentionally think beyond the internship year. CTSA is building a professional development pathway that can extend from graduate training provisional licensure independent licensure specialization supervision, training, and clinical leadership.
When there's a strong mutual fit and an appropriate position is available, interns may be considered for employment with CTSA following graduation and licensure.
There is no guarantee of employment after internship. But we hope to train clinicians well enough that, when the fit is right, continuing together is an obvious conversation to have.
Interested in Training at CTSA?
We're selective about internship placements because we invest significant time in the clinicians we train.
We're not looking for someone who already has everything figured out.
We're looking for someone who is ready to learn, willing to be challenged, interested in understanding themselves as part of the therapeutic process, and excited to begin developing their own clinical identity.
If that sounds like the kind of internship experience you're looking for, we'd like to hear from you.
Salary
$15 - $20 per hour
Mental Health Therapist Internship Market
Who's Hiring
Tips for Your Mental Health Therapist Internship Search
Apply earlier than the role seems to require
Large healthcare systems and behavioral health organizations recruit summer interns the preceding fall, often closing cohorts before spring semester begins. Smaller clinics and co-op placements post closer to start dates. Mapping both cycles at the start of each semester keeps you ahead of the most competitive windows.
Build clinical proof before you apply
Mental health therapist intern hiring teams cannot evaluate work history you do not have, so give them something else to assess. Document two or three practicum or classroom projects, the population, the modality, your role, and your supervisor's name. Case write-ups, group facilitation notes, and assessment samples are the artifacts that move a mental health therapist application forward.
Work your campus network and apply directly at the same time
Campus career fairs surface structured placements tied to your university, and professors or your clinical training coordinator often know which sites recruit from your school before roles post publicly. Applying directly to organizations running smaller cohorts alongside that campus activity widens the pool you reach and catches openings that never make it to a fair.
Practice your interview format out loud before you apply
Mental health therapist intern screens typically involve clinical vignettes, a case conceptualization exercise, or a competency-based behavioral interview. Practice answering out loud, walking through your clinical reasoning step by step, interviewers weigh how you think through a client situation as much as the conclusion you reach.
Target structured clinical training programs early
Larger health systems, managed behavioral health organizations, and community mental health centers run formal intern cohorts designed to train people new to the field. These programs recruit early, fill fast, and often count directly toward licensure hours. Identify the ones aligned with your licensure track and submit in the first application wave they open.
Set your work-type filter before you start searching
On-site roles are 100% of the mental health therapist internships listed here. Decide what you can realistically commit to before you start reviewing listings, clinical placements often require in-person client contact, which affects which remote or hybrid options are actually available to you. Filtering by location and work type first saves time sorting through roles you cannot take.
Mental Health Therapist Internships: Frequently Asked Questions
How do I get a mental health therapist internship?
Lead with coursework, clinical skills, and a portfolio rather than work history, hiring teams expect limited experience at the intern level. For mental health therapist candidates, a concrete artifact might be a case conceptualization write-up, a documented practicum project, or a sample treatment plan. Pair direct applications with campus career fairs, where recruiters often move faster for students they meet in person.
Can a mental health therapist internship turn into a full-time job?
Many employers extend return offers to strong interns, but conversion is never guaranteed. What actually drives it for mental health therapist interns is consistent performance on real client work, fit with the clinical team, and available headcount at the end of the term. Treat the internship as an audition without counting on an offer, that posture tends to produce better outcomes than assuming one.
When should I apply for mental health therapist internships?
Earlier than most candidates expect. Large healthcare systems and group practices recruit summer interns the preceding fall, often wrapping up selections before spring semester starts. Smaller clinics, community organizations, and co-op placements post closer to their actual start dates, so openings appear year-round. Checking listings regularly throughout the academic year keeps you from missing either window.
Are mental health therapist internships paid?
Most professional mental health therapist internships in the United States are paid. Compensation varies by company size, industry, and location, larger healthcare systems and managed behavioral health organizations typically pay more than small private practices or nonprofit agencies. Where an employer discloses pay, the listing will show it.
What should a mental health therapist internship resume include?
Lead with projects and clinical coursework, not work history. Include two or three documented practicum or classroom projects, note the populations served, the theoretical frameworks applied, and any supervision or co-facilitation involved. Role-specific proof for mental health therapist candidates includes case write-ups, group facilitation summaries, or assessment samples you can share on request. Keep the resume to one page.
Are there remote mental health therapist internships?
Yes. Remote and hybrid roles make up 0% of the mental health therapist internship listings here, with the rest on-site. Remote cohorts fill fast, so apply early and filter by work type to see available openings before they close.
What is a clinical practicum placement for mental health therapist interns?
A clinical practicum is a structured, supervised field placement embedded in most counseling and social work degree programs, it functions as the field-experience component of your training rather than a separate internship you find independently. Placements are competitive, recruit early through your program, and count toward licensure hours, so identify sites your program approves and submit applications in the first wave your department opens them.
Can international students get mental health therapist internships?
Yes. F-1 students can intern through CPT while enrolled or through OPT work authorization after finishing a degree, and the employer does not have to file anything for either, so many companies are open to international interns. Confirm your eligibility and timing with your university's international student office before accepting an offer.
See All 10 Mental Health Therapist Internship Jobs
Find roles that match your experience and apply in just a few clicks.
Find Mental Health Therapist Internships