Dr. Courtney Waldorf attended CSPP in San Diego and received her PsyD degree in May of 2005. Before coming to CSPP, she was a Psychology major from Montclair State University in New Jersey. Alliant's Communication Director Nicolette Toussaint interviewed Dr. Waldorf a few weeks before her graduation.

Dr. Waldorf: My current goal is to go into private practice work with children and families. I have worked with so many different kinds of mental disorders that I feel that I can handle anything now. I have experience with a range of diagnoses listed in the DSM, plus experience in testing.

Ms. Toussaint: Why did you choose CSPP?

Dr. Waldorf: CSPP was my first and only choice. I only to applied one grad school – I figured that if it was meant to be, it would happen.

I knew that I wanted to come to California, and I knew about CSPP, but I wasn’t sure what campus to choose. Then I figured that if I was going to be in grad school, I should be in a pretty place, so San Diego was a natural choice. That campus also had the child and family track.

I also talked to a CSPP faculty member before applied. I met Dr. Ribner at a graduate school fair at Rutgers in New Jersey. I was already interested in CSPP, and when I saw that he was going to be there, I went and talked to him.

Ms. Toussaint: What kind of experience did you get during the program?

Dr. Waldorf: I have had experience with all sorts of mental disorders: Asbergers syndrome, ADHD, and kids who have been physically or sexual abused, neglected or witnessed domestic violence. I have also dealt with adults with chronic and acute mental disorders.

Ms. Toussaint: Where, exactly, did you experience all that?

Dr. Waldorf: I got all this experience through my field placement – nearly all of it. I worked for one  year before I enrolled at CSPP in a group home for chronic schizophrenic adults.

My first placement was at Isis Crisis House. It’s a facility for acute mental illness after adults come out of a hospital following a psychotic break or severe depression. We rehabilitate patients for two weeks, and it’s always pretty intense.  Isis wasn’t my first choice; I had applied first to be in a school. I thought I was going to hate it at Isis, but I ended up loving it, and I’m still there for a regular shift twice a week. I started a placement at Isis in my second year, and kept working there my third and fourth years of graduate school.

I love it because of the environment – everyone works well as team. It is very open, so when you’re having a hard time with a client, there’s a whole room full of people you can process with. I really like my coworkers and all of the other interns. Working there, I pretty much learned the DSM inside and out.

Then, with my next placement, I decided that it would be a good idea to start working with kids. I got placed at the Chadwick Center for Children and Families at Children’s Hospital. I ended up working with a population is made up of abused and neglected children, and with their families, non-offending caregivers, and siblings. I have been providing long-term therapy for children, working with the whole age span from my youngest, a child 4 years old, to parents, the oldest being about 53. There were various aspects to the therapy there: role playing, psychoeducation, cognitive and behavioral therapy, occasionally group therapy.

Ms. Toussaint: It sounds like you're feeling pretty efficacious and ready to go about now...

Dr. Waldorf: I didn’t feel at all efficacious in the beginning. It was hard, because at the beginning, I had no training. The very thought of working with some of these kids was traumatic! I had a four-year-old who had witnessed his father murder his mother, and he could barely speak. How was I going to handle that? But I had a fast learning curve. Because of what I have done, I now feel more comfortable with what these kids were sharing.

I had a fast learning curve because I always had someone I could go to for help. My supervisor had an open-door policy. I could interrupt her at any time, and she was always supportive. There was also my consultation group at Alliant. I chose to work with a professor who had a child therapy background. The students in my group and my professor very helpful, and they were also working with children.

My third placement was at Springall academy, a non-public school that’s funded by the County, but private. They work with children who have basically bottomed out of San Diego public schools, students who can’t function in special education because of behavioral or cognitive problems. When they exhaust their options, they send them to Springall. I have done counseling with a range of disorders in the PDD spectrum: kids with autism, developmental delays, mild retardation, and I have also worked with kids who are defiant and have conduct disorders. The youngest was 8 and the oldest was 18.

Ms. Toussaint: What exactly, do you do at Springall?

Dr. Waldorf: What do I do there? A lot! I have worked there from September to the end of July. I take them outside a lot. I find that the outdoor setting is more helpful than being inside. We’re outside playing games, and I find ways to integrate therapy with basketball, for example, so they can work on coping skills and handling frustration. I work on building their social skills, anger management, and it all relates to goals that are tied to their IEP.

Ms. Toussaint: I've looked at the field placement forms and they have check boxes for experience with different age groups and ethnicities. Have you worked with a variety of populations?

Dr. Waldorf: Have I worked with a range of ethnicities? That’s inherent in working in San Diego! The whole time I have been here, in my various placements, I have had just a handful of Caucasians. Most of my clients have been Latino or African American. Out of the 16 kids I work with at Springhill, only 2 are Caucasian.

Ms. Toussaint: CSPP was founded with a goal of tightly integrating field placement and academics. The notion was that instead of introducing students to the field with an academic and theoretical education that was supplemented by a field placement at the end, that students would experience both together throughout the program. That each year, students would learn gain theory and hands-on skills both in the field and the classroom, and that they would be mentored by practitioners in both settings, gaining more and more independence and efficacy in the process. At the end, the student would not only be fully qualified to practice, he or she would also have a professional network to draw on for advice, as well as job placement. That was the plan. So how did it work for you?

Dr. Waldorf: It’s worked very well, because that’s what I’ve gotten. I chose CSPP because I wanted this, rather than something more research-based. At San Diego State, I think doctoral students get about 400 hours of field placement. But I have always thought that experience was what was going to make me successful in this field and I’m so proud of my skills! I know that after I graduate – in just a couple weeks now -  I will have a huge network of people I can talk to who will help out. If that’s the school’s goal, they certainly accomplished it with me. I have been very happy with the education I’ve gotten here.

Ms. Toussaint: I believe you have also had a publishing job connected with the University?

Dr. Waldorf: Before graduate school, I was working with Dr. Viglione, scoring psychological tests. That wasn’t exactly what I wanted to do; I wanted an editorial job under Dr. Geffner. When it became available, I jumped on it. I’ve worked for 4 years as Editorial Assistant, which involved coordination of 4 journals published though the office of the Family Violence and Sexual Assault Institute. As the Editorial Assistant, I oversaw everything with the journals except for writing and editing the articles. I created an electronic process for the entire process. I have met amazing people in the field through that job. So, that’s another job – I usually have three!

Ms. Toussaint: Do you sleep?

Dr. Waldorf: Not very much!

*****

Congratulations to Dr. Courtney Waldorf. Now that she has become an alumna, we wish her great success and hope she gets a chance to catch up on her sleep.