For Montrealers seeking psychological services, McGill has a clinic that can be of help.
“We design our services to reach underserviced segments of the population – folks who would have difficulty accessing therapy services otherwise,” says Dr. Nate Fuks, director of the Professor Virginia I. Douglas Centre for Clinical Psychology. “We try to serve as much of Montreal as possible.”
Beginnings
The clinic opened at the end of 2020, with a generous gift from an anonymous donor. The Department of Psychology had been wanting an in-house clinic – both to train its doctoral clinical psychology students and to serve the greater Montreal community.
“With this clinic we can establish excellence in evidence-based therapy training,” explains Dr. Fuks, who is also an Assistant Professor of Psychology.
The largest proportion of therapy services are provided by a cohort of second-year doctoral students.
Each student takes on four to five clients to whom they offer a minimum of 12 sessions. With this, students gain up to 80 hours of the direct clinical experience . “The department’s goal is to create professionals who can assume roles in the public sector,” says Dr. Fuks.
With cost being a big obstacle for many seeking therapy, fees are set at a maximum of $40 per session.
Clients may be seeking help for a mood disorder, obsessive-compulsive disorder, anxiety, or depression. They may be navigating a life transition, gender identity, sexual orientation, or having minority stress or relational issues. Because of the students’ limited experience, the clinic doesn’t take on clients with severe psychiatric ailments.
New frontiers: More therapists, new services, plus research
Dr. Fuks, who previously ran a similar clinic in the Faculty of Education, initially helped the psychology clinic get started, so when he was approached to become its director, it was an opportunity he couldn’t turn down.
“This is something I feel very passionate about. I saw how much potential this clinic has, so I very much welcomed the change and the challenge to grow and develop it.”
He’s proud that the clinic continues to expand its services. This September there are 14 student-therapists offering services at the clinic, the largest cohort to date.
“There is an enormous amount of demand for services these days, especially after COVID. The public sector is completely overloaded. People might be on a waiting list at a hospital or CLSC for a year or two sometimes. And the private sector is becoming increasingly less accessible, and financially unattainable.”
While until now the clinic exclusively served adults, it received funding from the province so that as of next year it will start accepting children and adolescents.
“It’s also a service in huge demand right now,” says Dr. Fuks. “Waitlists can be two to three years in the public sector. The private sector is quite unaffordable for a lot of families.”
He’s also excited about a new initiative that will see research conducted with patients. “This way clients will be able to contribute to research, on a strictly voluntary basis,” he explains.
A collaborative process
Students learn how to conduct all the main tasks of therapy, including the assessment, building a therapeutic alliance with the client, starting therapy, establishing a client’s goals, and terminating therapy.
Clients are aware that the therapists are students, and that the sessions are recorded. Sessions are reviewed by the student-therapist, their supervisor and one peer. Supervisors provide feedback, raise concerns, identify issues, and direct the client’s treatment plan.
Élodie Audet is a graduate student in the department and this past year she was a therapist in the clinic, with Dr. Fuks as her supervisor. For the duration of the school year, she followed four clients.
She found the supervision of the sessions incredibly useful.
“Even though it’s really hard to see yourself, you learn to love it. It’s really helpful. You can see, ‘wow, I missed this’, or next time I need to be more careful about that. It also provides a way for your supervisor and peer support to really be there. You get this external feedback of how it actually was in the room. It’s really a collaborative process.”
At the end of the year, students move on to new clients in other therapeutic environments with different supervisors. They may return to the clinic to train with a specialist or develop a specific competency.
Clients choose whether or not to continue with a new student-therapist.
“You’re able to follow people over a year across everything they’re living through. And actually seeing that you’re helpful, it’s an amazing feeling,” says Audet.
Some of the volunteers with the Ukrainian Aid Initiative.
Ukrainian Aid Initiative: ‘Giving to the community’
Last fall the Ukrainian Aid Initiative got up and running with an incredible 200 volunteers.
Run out of the McGill Centre for Clinical Psychology, with Dr. Fuks at its helm, the initiative provides therapy to Ukrainian refugees, predominantly women and children, in the greater Montreal area.
“From what we’ve seen, this project might be the first or only of its kind doing this type of work where it’s entirely volunteered based, with this huge number of volunteers, organized on an ad hoc basis in response to a global disaster,” says Dr. Fuks.
Audet is one of the initiative’s volunteers.
“I learned so much. I had no idea what I was getting into. I think none of us did. Everyone was so willing to help and give us their time,” she says.
The McGill Crowdfunding project for the initiative is ongoing. “The demand for services for Ukrainian refugees keeps on growing. New people keep on coming in because the war keeps on going on,” says Dr. Fuks, who was born and raised in Ukrainian city of Kharkiv.
Funds raised go towards paying for interpreters, logistics and administration, and mental health specialists.
“The fees we pay are low, mostly people aren’t doing it for money,” explains Dr. Fuks. “Many of the interpreters are themselves new refugees or new Ukrainian arrivals or displaced persons, so it’s yet another way we give back to the Ukrainian community.”
A global model
Dr. Fuks explains that people from across Canada and the world have consulted the initiative for advice or resources.
“For example, with the recent earthquakes in Lebanon and Turkey. We had former students reaching out and asking if there was anything they could leverage from the work we’ve done.”
The initiative has also provided other Canadian organizations that are serving new arrivals from Ukraine with access to teaching plans, training sessions, and other resources. “We’re really trying to share what we’ve done with as many people as we can,” he says.
Dr. Fuks’s own research was useful in setting up the initiative. He designed cultural and linguistic training modules for the therapists, which is a best practise for working with foreign nationals, immigrants and refugees.
Volunteers learned about Ukrainians’ possible attitudes towards therapy, including potential barriers and resistances. The training addressed the geopolitical situation and why, for example, some Ukrainians speak mostly Russian. Trainees learned how ethnically diverse the Ukrainian population is and that each group has their own unique history in Ukraine.
For Dr. Fuks, his role at the University was the perfect place for launching the initiative. “This is where we’re very lucky, being situated at McGill and running this clinic allowed me to access to all these wonderful resources and talented people that I wouldn’t have otherwise had.”