Laureate Psychiatric Clinic and Hospital (LPCH) is a private, not-for-profit psychiatric facility that is affiliated with the Saint Francis Health System. The Saint Francis Health System also includes four medical-surgical hospitals and over 450 primary care and specialty physician practices. Laureate provides mental health treatment services for adults and seniors across the full continuum of care. Substance abuse treatment is provided for adults. 

The Laureate Institute for Brain Research (LIBR) opened in 2009 and currently houses a multidisciplinary team of scientists and clinical research staff who apply neuroimaging, genetic, pharmacological and neuropsychological tools to investigate the biology and treatments of neuropsychiatric disorders. 

Laureate currently provides two full time internship positions. The positions will be focused on obtaining experiences within LPCH for approximately three days per week, with the interns working with their supervisor to identify units most relevant to their training goals. Potential options for LPCH clinical experience include the Adult Behavioral Health Units, the Mental Health Intensive Outpatient Unit, Drug and Alcohol Addiction Intensive Outpatient Unit, and/or the Eating Disorders Program. Approximately two days per week will be focused on clinical research and neuroscience training experiences at LIBR.

The LIBR Clinical Research involves clinical activities as part of ongoing psychotherapy clinical trials, as well as research training activities, and didactic activities. Clinical activities at LIBR will involve conducting empirically-supported, manualized interventions for adults and/or adolescents experiencing anxiety, depression, and/or substance use. There are additional opportunities for administering structured psychosocial history and diagnostic interviews and brief neuropsychological assessment batteries as part of ongoing research studies. Research activities may involve conducting literature reviews, data analysis, and preparing results for conference presentation or publication. These activities would be tailored to the interests of the intern through collaboration with supervisors and mentors. Interns will be encouraged to submit their research for conference presentation and/or publication. There are a number of different completed and ongoing research projects that interns can focus their research training and experience, including data from longitudinal and clinical outcome studies focused on depression, anxiety, or substance use, and utilizing multiple levels of assessments, including self-report, behavior, bioassays, neurofeedback, and neuroimaging (using functional magnetic resonance imaging and electroencephalography). This includes the Tulsa 1000 study, a longitudinal observational study of 1000 treatment-seeking individuals with mental health problems across the categories of mood, anxiety, eating, and substance use disorders and the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development (ABCD) study, a large multi-site, longitudinal study following 9-10-year-old children over a 10-year period (https://www.laureateinstitute.org/abcd.html), and NIGMS-funded Center of Biomedical Research Excellence (CoBRE) focused on Neuroscience-Based Mental Health Assessment and Prediction (NeuroMAP; http://www.libr-neuromap.org) and several other NIH-funded studies.

Interns are also invited to participate in LPCH and LIBR staff development and continuing education programs. LPCH programs include all day workshops, training seminars, and monthly case conferences. Interns are also invited to attend the monthly “William K. Warren, Jr. Frontiers in Neuroscience” and the quarterly “Diversity in Mental Health and Neuroscience” Lecture Series hosted by LIBR.

To learn more about Laureate Institute for Brain Research, go to www.laureateinstitute.org.

LIBR’s Commitment to Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion:

The LIBR Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Initiative was established with the goals of deepening our understanding of mental health disparities, improving generalizability of our research findings to our communities of focus, and enhancing the quality of science by increasing representation in the field by individuals from historically marginalized communities.

As committee members dedicated to supporting Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) initiatives, we recognize that, historically, research was conducted in a way that was deeply painful to marginalized groups, and the impact of systemic and structural biases on mental health are too often ignored or underestimated. We recognize that although there has been much improvement in how science is conducted, there is still much work needed to enhance our understanding and appreciation of factors related to diversity. We hold that there is no “finish line” to reach, rather the goal for the Diversity Initiative at LIBR is to continually work toward making science a more diverse, equitable, and inclusive space to conduct research that is positively impactful for the communities with whom we work.

​For our NOPIP internship, we extend our dedication to Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion to not only better understanding the unique factors that contribute to mental health across diverse groups and individuals, but also to consider how we can use this understanding to improve the mental health services we currently provide.

 Please see the following link for more information about LIBR’s DEI Initiative: https://www.laureateinstitute.org/diversity-equity--inclusion.html