CeDAR
Addiction Care Psychology Rotation
CeDAR is UCHealth’s premier facility for addiction treatment. We have been located at the University of Colorado’s Anschutz Medical Campus in Aurora, Colorado, since our doors opened on October 16, 2005. We offer world-class treatment for substance use and co-occurring psychiatric and medical disorders, and for three years straight, CeDAR has been ranked by Newsweek as the Best Addiction Treatment Center in Colorado. In 2022, it was ranked number two in the nation!
The unique collaboration between UCHealth and the University of Colorado School of Medicine creates the opportunity for an evolving, multidisciplinary treatment team at CeDAR. Our team is comprised of national leaders, clinicians, scholars, and trainees in the areas of Addiction Psychiatry, Addiction Medicine, Psychology, and Counseling and is rounded out by our remarkable Admissions, Spirituality, Fitness, Direct Care and Alumni teams. Our program integrates the science of evidence-based clinical, medical, and pharmacological interventions with the crucial benefits of 12-Step Tradition and milieu therapy to provide our patients with an individualized biopsychosocial-spiritual approach to recovery.
CeDAR psychologists function as clinicians and consultants. We facilitate a variety of group therapies, offer advanced training, conceptualization and clinical intervention, participate in multidisciplinary treatment team meetings, and utilize psychological testing to provide diagnostic clarification and facilitate treatment planning. Our interns get the opportunity to participate in all of this alongside our licensed psychologists.
Training the next generation of addiction professionals, beyond psychologists, is also crucial to our mission. Each year we get the privilege of teaching and working alongside psychology interns, addiction medicine and addiction psychiatry fellows, medical residents and medical students, chaplain residents and nursing and counseling students.
Specific Training Activities
Group Therapy: The intern will co-facilitate and observe a variety of process and psychoeducational groups throughout the training year.
Multidisciplinary Treatment Teams: The intern will participate in a weekly multidisciplinary treatment team.
Supervision: Secondary interns at CeDAR receive one hour of clinical supervision per week. Drs. Ellingson and Hacker have an open-door policy; if an intern needs more support outside of this time, it is available. Additionally, our broader team at CeDAR is available for consultation and support as needed.
**Secondary Interns must be at CeDAR on Wednesdays.
Detox: Interns can shadow our addiction medicine team to gain increased understanding of the detox process.
Family Program: Interns can offer support to family members of CeDAR patients and alumni through the Family Program. The specifics of this are determined with the Behavioral Health Supervisor.
Gratitude Meeting: The Gratitude Meeting is facilitated by our Alumni Program and happens each year on Thanksgiving. Many CeDAR alumni come to campus to join current patients and staff for a fellowship meeting focused on gratitude.
Individual Therapy: Interns at CeDAR do not carry a traditional caseload; however, as the year progresses, they have the opportunity to offer specialized individual therapy sessions to clients in the residential treatment setting. This is an opportunity for interns to fine tune their current clinical skill set, learn new interventions specific to substance use disorders, to enhance their abilities to effectively collaborate with the broader team, and support patients with more complex presentations. Interns can learn biofeedback, offer focused practice of DBT and mindfulness-based skills, and provide more focused trauma interventions during these sessions.
Presentations: Interns can provide didactic presentations to CeDAR staff and trainees on topics of their expertise. They are also encouraged to attend presentations provided by other staff throughout the training year.