Postdoctoral Psychology Fellow

Description

LORENZ CLINIC OF FAMILY PSYCHOLOGY

Postdoctoral Psychology Fellowship

Couple and Family Psychology — Major Area of Study

Full-Time · Salaried · Benefits-Eligible · APPIC-Listed · Southwest Minneapolis Metro

Who This Is For

This fellowship is for a psychologist who thinks in systems.

You completed your doctoral training with a strong relational or systemic foundation — couple and family psychology, contemporary psychodynamic work, attachment-informed therapy, or an integrative systemic model that places context, pattern, and relationship at the center of clinical thinking. You are not looking for a position that tolerates that orientation. You are looking for one that requires it.

You have done enough training to know that technical skill is necessary but not sufficient. You understand that what shapes clinical work is the capacity to hold complexity — to stay curious when a case becomes difficult, to hold multiple perspectives simultaneously, to intervene from reflection rather than reactivity. That capacity is what this fellowship is designed to deepen.

Board certification in Couple and Family Psychology (ABPP/CFP) may not be on your radar yet, but when you encounter it, it resonates. It reflects the kind of psychologist you are becoming — one with depth, specificity, and serious professional identity in a relational specialty.

If you are looking for a place to log hours and check boxes before moving on, this is not it. If you are looking for a serious professional home with room to run intellectually and clinically, read on.

About Lorenz Clinic

Lorenz Clinic of Family Psychology is a multi-site outpatient practice and psychotherapy training institute in the southwest Minneapolis metro, with locations in Victoria, Chaska, Prior Lake, Rosemount, Minnetonka, and Wayzata. We employ approximately 130 people across six sites.

We use both words deliberately: practice and institute.

The clinical work funds and grounds our mission. The institute is what gives the clinical work its shape, meaning, and reach. These are not two parallel activities at Lorenz Clinic. They are one integrated system.

We treat systems, not just symptoms.

We develop clinicians, not just employees.

We hold clinicians so clinicians can hold clients.

Our intellectual culture draws on Winnicott, Bowlby, Bion, Bateson, Falender, and the Tavistock group relations tradition — not as historical references, but as living frameworks for clinical practice, supervision, and organizational life. Our epistemology is systemic: problems are maintained by relational patterns, not isolated traits; change occurs through lived interpersonal experience, not insight alone; growth unfolds over time and must be scaffolded, not forced.

Training is not a department at Lorenz Clinic. It is the spine of the organization. Approximately 20% of clinical staff are in active training or supervision at any time. Our vertically integrated formation ladder — master’s practicum — Post-Master’s Fellowship — doctoral psychology internship — postdoctoral psychology fellowship — is among the most intentionally designed training architectures in the region. The Post-Master’s Fellowship is the center of gravity: Minnesota’s first competency-based post-master’s fellowship, receiving over 1,000 applications annually for a small cohort.

The postdoctoral fellowship is the highest rung of that ladder. It sits at the intersection of clinical excellence and emerging professional leadership. The formation that happens here matters not only to fellows, but to every trainee and clinician the organization holds.

The Fellowship

This is a one-year, full-time, salaried postdoctoral psychology fellowship with Couple and Family Psychology as the declared Major Area of Study. The fellowship is APPIC-listed and carries the formal structure expected of APA-accredited postdoctoral training.

It is also something more than its structural features suggest.

The fellowship at Lorenz Clinic is not simply a bridge to licensure. It is an experience of what serious psychotherapy practice looks and feels like inside an institution that is actively building toward national significance in the field of psychotherapy training. Fellows are not observers of this trajectory. They are part of it.

Clinical Training

Fellows carry a psychotherapy caseload with couple and family cases as an integrated component, alongside individual therapy. Caseload composition is developed collaboratively based on training interests, supervisor competencies, and program need. Fellows who wish to pursue psychological assessment may negotiate that as a goal prior to the fellowship year.

Weekly individual supervision — two hours per week — is provided by licensed psychologists with specific competencies in the fellow’s clinical areas, including weekly supervision from a Board-Certified Couple and Family Psychologist. This is one of only a few postdoctoral fellowships in the country to offer ABPP/CFP-track supervision as a structured component of training.

Training Community

Fellows are embedded in a structured training community that includes:

• Monthly seminars led by psychologist faculty: Couples Therapy, Assessment, Supervision of Supervision, and Postdoctoral Seminar
• Monthly Grand Rounds (2-hour seminar format)
• Monthly case consultation and site meetings
• Monthly Lunch and Learn
• Annual conference with internationally recognized presenters

Fellows who name supervision as a stated training goal have the opportunity to supervise practicum students and to begin or continue provision of clinical supervision under supervision — a structured early-career entry into the supervisory role consistent with Lorenz Clinic’s approach to formation across the developmental ladder.

The Pod Model

Training at Lorenz Clinic is organized through the pod model: small, stable, interprofessional reflective containers at each site, designed to hold the developmental experience of trainees and protect it from operational urgency. Fellows are embedded in an interprofessional team that includes family therapists, social workers, psychiatry providers, professional counselors, and psychologists. The pod is not a management structure. It is a developmental one.

Core Responsibilities

Clinical

• Carry a psychotherapy caseload including couples, families, and individuals as clinically indicated
• Conduct assessments, develop treatment plans, and manage discharge planning within supervisor-informed clinical judgment
• Provide clinical services to a wide range of ages, presentations, and relational configurations
• Maintain documentation in compliance with clinic standards, licensing board rules, and payer requirements

Training and Community

• Attend and actively participate in individual supervision, group consultation, Grand Rounds, and training seminars
• Provide at least one Lunch and Learn didactic during the fellowship year
• Supervise a practicum student on psychotherapy cases, if supervision is a stated training goal
• Engage intermittently in peer review of patient files
• Contribute to the intellectual and relational life of the training community

Professional

• Maintain professionalism in all interactions with staff, patients, supervisors, and business associates
• Monitor and address billing-related issues with patients as needed
• Adhere to directives from clinical and administrative supervisors
• Uphold all applicable codes of ethics, licensing board rules, and DHS/payer regulations

What We’re Looking For

We are not looking for a competent generalist who is willing to do some couple and family work. We are looking for a psychologist who is already oriented relationally and systemically — someone for whom working with couples and families is a natural expression of how they think about human suffering and change, not an add-on.

More specifically, we are looking for someone who:

• Has a theory of change — not as abstract ideology, but as a living clinical framework that is visible in how they formulate cases, select interventions, and reflect on outcomes
• Can locate problems in relational context — who understands that symptoms are signals about systems, and that treating the person without treating the pattern is often insufficient
• Demonstrates mentalizing capacity — the ability to hold their own internal states and those of clients simultaneously, without losing either perspective
• Carries a psychotherapist’s register — someone who thinks in depth, works with meaning and affect, and understands that the therapeutic relationship is not just a delivery vehicle but a site of change itself
• Has the intellectual appetite for this kind of training community — grand rounds, supervision of supervision, peer consultation, and continuing education that accumulates as a natural byproduct of showing up to work

A Note on Training at Lorenz Clinic

At most active training clinics, clinicians earn continuing education by seeking it out. At Lorenz Clinic, fellows earn approximately 100 hours of board-approved continuing education annually simply by showing up to work — supervision, grand rounds, case consultation, seminars, and the annual conference combine to create a continuous learning environment rather than a periodic one.

Development at Lorenz Clinic is not incidental. It is structural. Development happens in structured environments, not just in good intentions.

For the past decade and a half, Lorenz Clinic has been recognized in the field as the psychotherapist’s clinic — one of the few practices that clinicians entrust with their own career development, and in many cases, with their own families. That reputation is the accumulated consequence of taking formation seriously, year after year.

Compensation and Benefits

Salary: $85,000 - $112,000, commensurate with experience and caseload.

The fellowship is a full-time, salaried, benefits-eligible W-2 position. Benefits include:

• Employer-sponsored medical, dental, vision, life, and short- and long-term disability insurance
• 401(k) with employer match
• 3 weeks paid time off, paid holidays, and paid service/volunteer time
• Paid continuing education hours and an annual CEU allowance
• Paid burnout time (yes, this is a distinct benefit, and yes, we mean it)
• Approximately 100 hours per year of board-approved CE earned through standard clinical and training activities

A Note on Fit

Lorenz Clinic is not the right fit for everyone, and we recognize that. Clinicians who thrive here tend to be energized by relational complexity, comfortable with ambiguity, and genuinely interested in their own development as practitioners. They want supervision that is substantive, not ceremonial. They want a training community that takes ideas seriously. They want to work somewhere that holds them so they can hold their clients.

If that is what you are looking for, we would be glad to hear from you.

Application Process and Timeline

This fellowship is APPIC-listed for psychology. Applications are reviewed on a rolling basis in accordance with APPIC guidelines (you may apply via indeed, Lorenz Clinic's online job portal, LinkedIn, or via APPIC.

To apply, please submit:

• Cover letter (required) — please address your relational and systemic clinical orientation, your theory of change, and why this fellowship represents the right next step for your development
• Curriculum vitae
• Two letters of recommendation

Graduate transcripts and up to two clinical work samples (de-identified) may be requested of finalists. For questions about training-related activities and placement specifics, please contact Dr. Jared Spencer, Training Director.

Lorenz Clinic is proudly committed to recruiting and retaining a diverse and inclusive workforce. We are an Equal Employment Opportunity/Affirmative Action employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, age, national origin, protected veteran status, disability status, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, marital status, genetic information, or any other characteristic protected by law. Offers of employment are conditional upon successful clearance of all background checks.

Requirements

Required Qualifications

• Doctoral degree (PhD or PsyD) in clinical or counseling psychology from an APA-accredited graduate program, completed prior to the fellowship start date
• Active pursuit of Minnesota licensure as a Licensed Psychologist (LP), with reasonable progress toward full licensure attainment within one year of start date; full licensure is not required at time of hire
• Completed APA-accredited predoctoral internship prior to start date
• Demonstrated training, coursework, or clinical experience with couples and/or families
• Ability to work full-time, in person, across a five-day workweek with availability for evening appointments as required by caseload
• Ability to provide services to a wide range of ages, presentations, and relational configurations, including children, adolescents, adults, couples, and families
• Strong interpersonal, clinical, and written/verbal communication skills
• Ability to respect and integrate issues of culture, diversity, and systemic context into case conceptualizations and treatment
• Ability to maintain documentation in compliance with clinic standards, licensing board requirements, and payer regulations
• Ability to intervene decisively to protect patient safety when indicated

Strongly Preferred Qualifications

• Graduate training with a declared relational, systemic, or contemporary psychodynamic emphasis (e.g., couple and family psychology, attachment-informed, relational-cultural, or integrative systemic models)
• Doctoral dissertation or major research project with relevance to relational, systemic, or family psychology
• Expressed interest in pursuing Board Certification in Couple and Family Psychology (ABPP/CFP), either as a current pursuit or a natural professional aspiration
• Prior supervised experience providing clinical supervision, or expressed interest in the supervisory role as part of professional development
• Experience with psychological assessment, particularly within a relational or systemic frame (if assessment is a stated training goal for the fellowship year)
• Evidence of scholarly or professional engagement with the field: presentations, publications, training contributions, or active involvement in professional organizations

Professional Qualities We Seek

In addition to formal qualifications, we attend to the following in evaluating fit for this fellowship:

• A visible and articulable theory of change — not eclecticism as a default, but an integrated clinical framework that is evident in how you formulate and discuss cases
• Mentalizing capacity — the demonstrated ability to hold multiple perspectives simultaneously, including curiosity about your own internal states and their role in clinical work
• A psychotherapist’s register — orientation toward meaning, depth, and the therapeutic relationship as a site of change, not merely a vehicle for intervention
• Reflective functioning — the capacity to remain curious and self-reflective under clinical and relational pressure, rather than defaulting to technique
• Genuine appetite for a high-engagement training environment — grand rounds, supervision of supervision, peer consultation, and didactic learning as a valued part of professional life

This is a salaried, benefits-eligible, W-2 position. The fellowship is full-time, in-person, and based in the southwest Minneapolis metro area. Specific site assignment will be determined in collaboration with the Training Director.

Why Minnesota

For candidates considering relocation:

The Twin Cities metro offers something increasingly rare — a high quality of life that doesn't require a second income to sustain. Green space is extensive and used year-round. Civic engagement is serious; Minnesota leads the country in voter turnout as an expression of a political culture that takes participation personally, and the progressive tradition here runs deep without being merely performative. The metro is one of the most culturally diverse in the upper Midwest, with significant immigrant and refugee communities that have shaped the region's identity over generations — which means the relational systems clinicians work within here are among the most complex and interesting in the country.

The food and music scenes have been quietly exceptional. The southwest metro where Lorenz Clinic operates sits close enough (20min) to the city to access all of it, grounded enough in community to feel like somewhere specific.