1-Year Fellowship in Psychotherapy

Launch Date TBD (Click Here to indicate your interest)

Are you a family physician with an interest in enhancing the quality of care you can provide to your patients with mental health concerns within the outpatient setting?

Do you often feel stuck or at a loss as to how to help your patients who require psychotherapy?

Do your patients struggle with access to psychotherapy due to limited availability in rural communities or a lack of financial resources?

Would you like to be part of a solution to improving access to safe, and effective psychotherapy for patients in the outpatient, primary care setting?

If so, please consider applying for the Fellowship in Psychotherapy offered via Primary Care Psychotherapy Alberta in conjunction with Think Recovery; a virtual psychotherapy clinic under the leadership of Dr. Ishan Sharma.

Through active participation in this comprehensive fellowship, you will become more skilled and confident in your ability to conceptualize cases, formulate assessments, and perform targeted psychotherapeutic interventions, to more effectively treat your patients. 

You’ll be able to maintain your clinical practice while benefitting from specialized didactic teaching, 1-on-1 longitudinal case consultation, and small group experiential and process groups to enhance and consolidate your learning.

You’ll join a community of practice where you learn alongside likeminded professionals who share a common passion for continuing education and a commitment to providing exceptional patient care.

By choosing to participate in this fellowship, you become a leader in your local practice and you help support my goal of increasing capacity within the community to more effectively provide psychotherapy within primary care throughout Alberta. 

It’s a Win-Win for all.

  • 12 Month Program
  • Individual & Small Group
  • Virtual Format

What You Will Learn

  • Practice changing insights into working with your patients
  • How to more confidently navigate complex cases
  • Refine your assessment skills; know when to refer out
  • Enhance your clinical decision making

What We Will Discuss

  • Approaches to case formulation
  • Decision points during therapy
  • Treatment planning and progression
  • Different techniques and methodologies (ex. Somatic, Experiential, and Relational Psychodynamic Psychotherapy)

What You Will Do

  • Commit to regular and engaged attendance at all educational events
  • Identify the patient(s) you would like to present in longitudinal individual case consultation
  • Arrive prepared by completing the case consultation form prior to our regularly scheduled meetings for the patient to be discussed
  • Be punctual so we can make effective use of our time together
1-Year Part-time fellowship

FAQ

Find answers to frequently asked questions about the 1-Year Part-Time Fellowship in Psychotherapy

I have training in the following modalities:

  • Accelerated Experiential Dynamic Psychotherapy (AEDP)
  • Mentalization-Based Treatment
  • Psychodynamic Psychotherapy
  • Sensorimotor Psychotherapy

The modalities listed above are the ones that I primarily draw from in my clinical work. My case formulations are rooted in psychodynamic theory.

Fellows will be exposed to the above modalities throughout the program.

I have treated a wide variety of patients with clinical presentations including one or often multiple of the following:

  • Complex Trauma (Attachment, Developmental, Relational, etc.)
  • Substance Addiction
  • Behavioural Addiction
  • Mood Disorders
  • Psychotic Disorders
  • Personality Disorders
  • Anxiety Disorders
 
At this time my practice is focused on treating patients living with the after effects of attachment injury and relational trauma (ex. difficulties with emotional regulation, interrupted psychological development, and impairments in interpersonal functioning).

Fellowship Mission:

To improve capacity to provide safe and effective psychotherapy within the outpatient primary care setting in communities throughout Alberta, through providing longitudinal clinical support, building a community of practice, and creating a province-wide integrated referral network.

The primary audience for this fellowship would be family physicians in independent practice. Physicians in other disciplines who provide longitudinal mental health care to adult patients would also be eligible.

Main Physician Target Demographic:

  1. Family physician with a focused practice in psychotherapy looking to deepen or expand their skillset
  2. Family physician providing comprehensive care with an interest in shifting to a focused practice in psychotherapy or exploring/trialling this
  3. New graduate Family physicians who are interested in additional supervised part-time practice in psychotherapy
  4. Rural Family physicians who are interested in upskilling to increase capacity to treat mental health issues with psychotherapy in the outpatient setting within their local communities

Yes, absolutely. With my transdiagnostic approach to psychotherapeutic care, I am able to discuss approaches to treatment of patients with a wide range of symptoms and clinical presentations. This includes working with patients with symptoms of bipolar disorder, borderline personality disorder, binge eating disorder, substance and/or behavioural addictions, insecure attachment, etc.

The aim of the fellowship is to help build a solid foundation of competency in providing psychotherapy in the outpatient, primary care setting and as such fellows will be assisted in identifying patients to focus on during the program that are appropriate in complexity and presentation to their existing skill level and developmental edge.

With the aforementioned in mind, fellows will use the following criteria to help guide their patient selection.

Patient Exclusion Criteria:

  1. Acute safety/suicidality concerns
  2. Active substance use
  3. Active psychotic disorder
  4. Active mania/untreated bipolar disorder
  5. Acute crisis
  6. Active eating disorder
  7. Active legal or forensic psychiatric issues

Yes. Family physicians with a comprehensive practice are eligible to apply.

Benefits to Fellowship Participants:

  • Following completion of the fellowship you will be eligible to be listed on the Primary Care Psychotherapy Alberta website under the referral directory
  • Improve your skills in assessment, treatment planning and intervention when providing psychotherapy to your patients
  • Join a community of practice with likeminded peers also committed to pursuing advanced training in psychotherapy

Benefits to Your Patient(s):

  • Receive treatment that is informed by longitudinal case consultation with an experienced colleague
  • Improved diagnostic clarity, treatment planning and more tailored interventions culminating in more effective treatment of their presenting concerns
  • Submit a completed application that consists of the following components:
    • An up-to-date CV
    • A Statement of Interest
    • A Certificate of Understanding
    • Two letters of reference from clinicians familiar with your work
    • The secure online application form can be found HERE [Coming Soon].
  • Selected applicants will be offered a 60 minute interview with Dr. Sharma
  • Successful applicants will be offered a spot in the fellowship and invited to arrange a followup meeting with Dr. Sharma where patients appropriate for treatment by the fellow and longitudinal supervision will be identified
  • Successful applicants will then refer the patient they would like assistance with to Think Recovery for an initial consultation where they will meet with Dr. Sharma and his clinic nurse for an intake to further assess suitability; fellows are able to sit in on this session as an observer and the session will be debriefed in detail
  • Dr. Sharma will provide you with his initial impression after which your patient will continue to see you in individual psychotherapy at a frequency of weekly sessions and you will meet with Dr. Sharma on a weekly basis to review your treatment progress in case consultation

  • Privacy compliant teleconferencing software is used for our confidential and secure meetings throughout the application process & fellowship program with all meetings occurring virtually

It is expected that fellows will commit to full attendance of all scheduled educational events and provide advance notice (48 hrs) in the case of any unexpected need for cancellation of an individual case consultation session. 

An open, curious, and engaged attitude is also expected in order to facilitate an effective dialogue.

In the case of a no show or a late cancellation to an individual case consultation meeting (less than 48 hours notice or showing up 5 or more minutes late), a fee will apply.

Missed case consultation and small group experiential meetings will need to be made up. The expectation is that you will attend all sessions live in order to minimize disruption to the group process and to facilitate your own learning.

You will video record your sessions with your patient and bring your video for presentation to review in weekly individual case consultation with Dr. Sharma to provide treatment suggestions and individualized feedback.

On a biweekly basis you will be an engaged participant in small group skill practice and a process group (90 minutes; up to 4 participants per small group) to facilitate skill acquisition.

Requirements:

  • Bring your own patients for supervision from your own practice and video record your sessions
  • Commit to full, routine attendance and engagement in all learning events
  • Be a self-motivated learner keen on improving your knowledge, assessment and intervention skills in psychotherapy

Yes, as long as you are a nurse practitioner licensed and practicing in Alberta with a valid PRAC-ID, and you have your own mental health patients you are treating, you are eligible to apply.

Training Program Components:

  • 12 months on a part-time basis that you can participate in while maintaining your own clinical practice
  • Monthly didactic lecture x 3 hrs; asynchronous delivery
  • Weekly individual (60 minute) case consultation with Dr. Sharma reviewing your video recordings of your sessions with your patient
  • Biweekly small group skill practice & process group (90 minutes; up to 4 participants per small group)
  • Therapeutic Orientation: An integration of somatic, experiential, and relational psychodynamic psychotherapy
  • Program size: 4-12 fellows per year
  • All meetings occur virtually with privacy compliant teleconferencing software to maintain the confidential and secure nature of our meetings 

Didactic Curriculum:

  1. The Therapeutic Frame, Boundaries & Practice Management
  2. The Initial Assessment & Developing a Case Formulation
  3. Learning to Listen for Unconscious Processes in Psychotherapy
  4. Trauma, Attachment, & Development
  5. Personality & Psychological Defenses
  6. Transference, Countertransference & Enactment
  7. Moment-to-Moment Tracking in Session from 5 Different Therapeutic Models
  8. Rupture, Repair, & Regulation
  9. Differential Diagnosis in Psychotherapy
  10. Clinical Issues: Common Treatment Challenges, Crisis & Impasse
  11. Confrontation, Anger in the Countertransference & Countertransference Acting Out
  12. Essential Techniques in Psychodynamic Psychotherapy, Experiential Psychotherapy & Somatic Psychotherapy

Yes, if you are a physician or nurse practitioner located outside of Alberta you can apply. Please indicate your out-of-province status in your application. I will followup with you to discuss rates for case consultation meetings as this won’t be covered by AHCIP with non-Albertan physicians or nurse practitioners and payment will be required upfront at the time of acceptance in order to confirm your spot in the program. 

To be confirmed.