WVU's Quin Curtis Center
Provides Vital Mental Health Services

The importance of good mental health has received increased attention worldwide during the past few years. According to the World Health Organization's landmark 1990 study, "Global Burden of Disease," five of the ten leading causes of disability in persons age five and older are mental disorders (when including alcohol abuse in this category).

Concerns about substance abuse, Alzheimer's disease, and overall mental health, along with advances in basic neuroscience, prompted the U.S. Congress to name the 1990s the Decade of the Brain, and the Office of the Surgeon General released its first report on mental health in 1999. The current decade has been declared the Decade of Behavior.

"We recognize that the brain is the integrator of thought, emotion, behavior, and health," said then-Surgeon General David Satcher, MD, PhD, in the 1999 report's preface. "Indeed, one of the foremost contributions to contemporary mental health research is the extent to which it has mended the destructive split between 'mental' and 'physical' health."

Despite this growing awareness of the importance of mental health and an increased emphasis on research into the causes of mental illness and effective treatment, an aura of fear and misunderstanding remains. In addition, barriers to effective treatment exist beyond a lack of understanding. The most frequently noted barrier is cost. With at least 44 million Americans lacking any kind of health insurance, the $100 or more cost of an hour's visit to a psychologist or psychiatrist is beyond the means of many people.

A group of psychologists and graduate students who work in West Virginia University's new Life Sciences Building labor throughout the academic year and several days each week during the summer to help people suffering from emotional and behavioral disorders. They work in the Department of Psychology's Quin Curtis Center, which provides high-quality mental health services for people in the region and serves as the initial training facility for graduate students in the department's renowned graduate programs in child and adult clinical psychology.

Named in memory of the depart-ment's first chair, the Quin Curtis Center (QCC) provides general mental health services and specializes in providing treatments for a variety of problems, including anxiety, childhood behavior difficulties, chronic pain, depression, eating disorders, marital distress, phobias, and stress-related disorders.

Anyone may schedule an appointment at the QCC (304-293-2001, ext. 31671). The center provides services at slightly more than half the cost of most licensed therapists and uses a sliding scale that ranges from $10 to $40 per visit, depending on ability to pay. The center accepts nominal payments directly from clients in lieu of insurance.

Facilities like the Quin Curtis Center are fairly common at educational institutions that provide graduate training in clinical psychology with approval from the American Psychological Association, according to William Fremouw, PhD, professor of psychology and the center's clinical director. While similar centers exist, the experience a client receives at the Quin Curtis Center is unlike any available in the greater Morgantown area.

The treatment programs provided are implemented by clinical teams consisting of a licensed psychologist and three or four graduate students working on either master's degrees or doctorates in clinical psychology. The licensed psychologist is either a full-time or adjunct faculty member in the Department of Psychology.

"The interaction between faculty and doctoral trainees in providing care to clients promotes innovative, caring, and evidence-based treatment," said Daniel W. McNeil, PhD, a professor of psychology and a specialist in the treatment of anxiety, phobias, and chronic pain.

"Really, it's more bang for your buck," said Jennifer Guriel, a student in her fourth year in the adult clinical program, about the services provided by the clinic. "Here you will probably have at least two therapists and two other people reviewing videotapes of the [therapy] sessions. It's like getting four psychologists for less than half the price of one psychologist in private practice."

All first-year students in the clinical psychology graduate programs must serve on one of the QCC's clinical teams. Students in the four-year doctoral program will usually spend one of those remaining three years on a QCC team but will complete two other clinical placements, known as practica, at one or two other mental health facilities in the region. Students then complete a year-long professional internship as their final degree requirement prior to graduation.

"The QCC allows faculty members to do intense training before students go to their practica," Fremouw said. "The training model here is invaluable," Guriel explained. "Role playing, interviewing skills, cotherapy with an upper-level student or faculty member . . . it's great for the student."

The department's director of clinical training, Professor Kevin T. Larkin, PhD, said that the clinic provides an essential learning environment for future psychologists: "You have to have students exposed to clinical experiences; you can't do that in a vacuum. I think the clinic provides a really important function in their training," Larkin added.

He explained that first-year students take courses in clinical diagnostics, clinical assessment, research methods and statistics, and treatment methods. In addition, they are usually conducting research in a faculty member's lab and completing 100 to 120 hours working on client services provided in the QCC. They normally will be working directly on at least one case.

The psychology profession has recognized the Department of Psychology's efforts in training and research. The department has been ranked fourth worldwide in research publication productivity in the area of behavior analysis and therapy. The department and its faculty members and students have garnered a variety of honors and awards. Two years ago, the Association for Advancement of Behavior Therapy chose WVU's doctoral program in clinical psychology as recipient of the 2001 Outstanding Training Program Award. The services and training offered in the QCC were included in the overall evaluation of the training program for the award.

The doctoral program in clinical psychology has been ranked among the best nationwide by U.S. News & World Report. The department, which is one of 16 units within WVU's Eberly College of Arts and Sciences, typically attracts several hundred applications for fewer than ten available positions for graduate students in the clinical program each year. In addition to a professional master's degree and a PhD program in clinical psychology, the department's 22 full-time faculty members also offer doctoral programs in behavior analysis and life-span developmental psychology.

"I am extremely proud of the Department of Psychology in all aspects of how the department's faculty, staff, and students meet the instructional, research, and service missions of WVU," said M. Duane Nellis, dean of the Eberly College of Arts and Sciences. "The department is a model for others within the College, the University, and higher education. I am especially pleased with the work our students and faculty members perform in the Quin Curtis Center in meeting the mental health needs of people in Morgantown and beyond. It is truly a unique facility in this region."

The clinic features therapy rooms with one-way windows that allow faculty members and students to monitor the work of student therapists or the behavior of clients. Sometimes a faculty member will monitor or assist a therapy session being conducted by a student through a "bug in the ear." The student therapist wears an audio receiver in his or her ear and can receive instruction from a faculty member on the other side of the window.

The monitoring rooms also are used to guide parents in learning new interaction skills with their children. During sessions overseen by Associate Professor Cheryl McNeil, an expert in child-parent interaction, the parent will wear the device and receive instructions from therapists watching behind the window.

"It's very collaborative," said Deborah J. Jones, PhD, an assistant professor with specializations in adult clinical and health psychology and working with married couples having difficulties in their relationships. "They [the clients] are in very good hands. All our student therapists are supervised closely, but we are trying to give them the tools to deal with things on their own."

The clinic specializes in empirically-validated techniques of behavioral psychology. The therapy programs used by the QCC have been proven effective through research in the fields of clinical and behavioral psychology. "We are very much scientist-practitioners here," Guriel said. "We use methods that have been validated."

"I think it's nice for people to know that we are not just making this up as we go," Jones said. All treatment methods are carefully selected by the faculty members, and are based on the most current research available on what works for a particular problem.

"You've got a faculty member [working on your case] who is up on the latest empirically-based therapy programs," said Lindsey Cohen, PhD, an assistant professor who specializes in child behavior problems, parenting skills training, and helping children cope with painful medical treatments. Cohen became interested in research while working as an entry-level psychology technician in the medical psychiatric unit of an Atlanta hospital after graduating with a bachelor's degree in psychology.

"We'd have five people holding a kid down" to complete a painful medical procedure, Cohen said. After experiencing scenes like that for three years, he became convinced that there must be a better way to help children cope with painful treatments. Some of his research at WVU has shown that cognitively complex distractions, like playing video games, are effective in significantly reducing pain during treatment.

Jill MacLaren is learning a lot about the pain children feel during medical treatments. A third-year student, she began working on July 1 as a therapist for 20 hours a week in the Burn-Trauma Unit of Western Pennsylvania Hospital, in Pittsburgh. "You really get a feel for the care needs of a burn patient," MacLaren said. "It's amazing what different issues that you get into." She said a lot of what she does leads to "giving parents and kids permission to talk" about their fears and concerns.

Many of her experiences in the QCC involved working with parents who have children with behavior problems—everything from anxiety, depression, and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) to opposition-defiant disorder. "If the parents coming to us want help, there is probably help that we can give to them in managing their kids' behaviors," MacLaren said.

When clients make their initial appointments at the Quin Curtis Center, they are informed that they will work with students under the supervision of a faculty member. The experience is much like that of being a patient in a teaching hospital.

Fremouw and Larkin both emphasized that the clinic follows the American Psychological Association's "Ethical Principles of Psychologists and Code of Conduct" and requires students to adhere to the highest professional standards of confidentiality specified by the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act and by West Virginia state law. Both professors also noted that while the QCC is housed within a research-oriented psychology program, clients are rarely involved directly in research projects, and never without their consent.

After a client agrees to seek therapy in the QCC, the faculty member and team members discuss a treatment program based on the client's goals.

"Typically, treatment goals are mutually agreed upon by therapist and client early in therapy," Larkin explained. "We develop a treatment plan that both the therapist and client sign in which goals and methods are clearly stated. Once the stated goals have been achieved, treatment is discontinued. That said, we also want to make sure that the improvement maintains, so it is quite likely that as goals are achieved, a follow-up appointment will be scheduled just to make sure new behaviors are maintained."

The QCC provides services for 50 to 60 clients and provides training to about 20 students annually. More than 500 hours of clinical services are provided to individuals from West Virginia, southwestern Pennsylvania, and western Maryland each year. Many of these patients would not be able to receive services in their home communities because they lack insurance and cannot afford the typical expenses for psychological services or because their specific needs cannot be met by their local mental health professionals. "Clients often desire to come to a university-based clinic so they can receive the type of specialized care that may not be available in their own communities," Larkin said.

Through the Decade of Behavior and in the future, the Quin Curtis Center will continue to be an important resource for both WVU students and the clients who come here for help. "I really feel like my first two years [at the Quin Curtis Center] have given me the skills I need," MacLaren said. "It's this learning utopia."

Fall 2003 Contents

Home