Clinical Health Psychology

Cynthia O. Townsend, PhD, LP, ABPP

Clinical Health Psychology
Assistant Professor of Psychology
Mayo Clinic
Rochester, Minnesota

Q: What is your practice like?
 
As a clinical health psychologist in a large interdisciplinary pain rehabilitation program, I am responsible for coordinating and providing psychological treatment for patients with debilitating chronic pain and co-morbid psychological disorders.  I am also actively involved in treatment outcome research and educating psychologists, residents/fellows, and professionals from various disciplines about the psychological aspects of managing chronic illnesses.

Q: What did you learn about yourself and your practice while preparing for board certification?
 
In the preparation of the ABPP certification, my work samples offered me the opportunity to reflect on how truly specialized my clinical practice has become within the field of psychology and clinical health psychology.  Within the daily hectic pace of my day, I don’t often cite theoretical foundations and the empirically-supported base of my clinical work.  However, I found that my work samples truly reflect that my education and training are strongly founded in the principles of clinical health psychology.  To me, this is one of the most important qualities that ABPP is attempting to capture with the board certification distinction.

Q: What have you found most valuable or rewarding about board certification?
 
Obtaining my ABPP in clinical health psychology aided me in being promoted to a tenured position in our academic medical hospital.  Our department requires every clinical psychologist to become board certified in our area of specialty to add further credibility to our colleagues and patients regarding our areas of expertise.  This also allows our department to boast the credentials of our faculty when recruiting psychology fellows to our training programs.  Additionally, being able to identify myself as board certified in my field of specialty provides additional credibility to other psychologists who are referring patients to our clinic.  They may not know the specifics of my education, internship and fellowship training, but they are able to recognize that I have strong interest, background and experience working in the field of clinical health psychology.

Q:  What was the most challenging/interesting/surprising aspect of the board certification process?
 
The certification process initially seemed daunting, but in reality the sample work and oral examination allowed me to basically exhibit the work I am already doing every day as a clinical health psychologist.  Setting a deadline for myself to organize the work sample was the best idea because when I sat down to work on it, I realized I already had a lot of the pieces already in front of me.  I spoke with a few board certified colleagues about the process beforehand.  Consistent with their experiences, I found the examiners weren’t trying to “stump” me, rather the oral examination proved to be an opportunity for me to demonstrate how I adopt a biopsychosocial approach to assessing patients with complex medical and psychological concerns in order to develop a comprehensive treatment plan, and my critical evaluation of potential ethical dilemmas.  I think there are a lot of really good psychologists who definitely already have the education, training and experience to become certified in their area(s) of specialty but may unfortunately shy away because of misconceptions about the certification process.