For NYC area psychology doctoral students:
Consider doing a clinical externship at the Manhattan Center for Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy! Learn and apply advanced CBT techniques with a motivated adult population. We train clinical and counseling psychology doctoral students during a 12-month externship beginning on July 1st. Externs participate in one of two tracks: the anxiety track and the emotion regulation track. Interested students can apply for either or both tracks.
If you do an externship at the Manhattan Center for Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy, you will have the opportunity to work with patients with a diversity of types of psychopathology. Presenting complaints often include one or more of the following:
- Attention deficit disorder (ADD/ADHD)
- Depression
- Emotional dysregulation
- Generalized anxiety disorder
- Illness anxiety disorder
- Insomnia
- Obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD)
- Panic attacks and/or panic disorder
- Specific phobias
- Personality disorders
- Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD)
- Relationship and marital issues
- Skin picking (excoriation disorder)
- Social anxiety
- Substance misuse
- Trichotillomania
Externs on the anxiety track receive supervision from Paul Greene, Ph.D. or Justin Arocho, Ph.D.
Dr. Greene completed his training at Boston University, Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, and at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine. Dr. Greene is a former research faculty member at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, where he conducted research on the efficacy and dissemination of CBT for cancer patients and survivors. Dr. Greene is committed to training CBT clinicians at all levels of expertise; he has served in a central role in a Mount Sinai-led CBT education initiative that has provided training for hundreds of psychosocial clinicians from around the nation.
Dr. Arocho completed his training at Fordham University and at Rutgers University Behavioral Health Care. He has also worked in inpatient hospital, university counseling, forensic, and community mental health settings. Dr. Arocho serves as an adjunct faculty contributor to the Predoctoral Psychology Internship Program at Rutgers University Behavioral Health Care in Newark, New Jersey. He currently serves as the Assistant Director of the Manhattan Center for CBT.
Externs on the emotion regulation track will additionally receive supervision from Sarah Reynolds, Ph.D. Dr. Reynolds has fifteen years of experience providing DBT training, consultation, and direct service in a variety of settings. She developed expertise in DBT during a three-year fellowship at the University of Washington under the mentorship of Professor Marsha Linehan. Dr. Reynolds serves as a member of the executive board of the International Society for the Improvement and Teaching of DBT. She has published theoretical and empirical articles on DBT, personality disorder, and suicidal behavior. As a senior trainer for Dr. Linehan’s training company Behavioral Tech, she has conducted numerous DBT Intensive trainings, nationally and internationally.
Our weekly didactic seminars include four components that provide comprehensive clinical training in CBT: reviewing current research and literature, supervised CBT skills practice, case conferences, and clinical considerations for the patient population at MCCBT. The didactics seminar has been described by externs as being a particularly valuable part of their training experience; it is one way in which MCCBT training emphasizes the importance of research-informed clinical work. Didactics are led by Pallavi Visvanathan, Ph.D.

Dr. Visvanathan is an expert in cognitive-behavioral and mindfulness-based treatments for anxiety disorders and is one of only a few NYC psychotherapists who are certified teachers of Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT). She also specializes in Exposure and Response Prevention (ERP) and Acceptance & Commitment Therapy (ACT). She is experienced in working with ethnic minorities and LGBT/queer individuals as well as individuals coping with medical issues such as cancer recovery & heart disease. She received her doctorate in clinical psychology from the University of Denver and completed her internship training in inpatient, outpatient, primary care, and community mental health at the Denver Health Medical Center. Dr. Visvanathan is a consultant and collaborator on multiple clinical trials at NYU School of Medicine that examine the effects of mindfulness-based treatments for mental and physical health disorders.
The MCCBT externship packs a lot of training into two days per week. Externs participate in a total of two to three hours of supervision weekly (between individual and group supervision). In addition, externs participate in our above-described weekly didactics seminar. Externs see an average of 8-10 patients in a typical week.
Interested to learn more, or to apply? Email us at info@manhattanCBT.com. MCCBT abides by the PSYDNYS-NYNJADOT Externship Guidelines; only doctoral students in psychology are eligible to apply.