PsyD Letter of Recomendation

To Whom It May Concern,

My name is Dr. Paulo Lizano. MD, PhD. I am a Neuropsychiatrist and an Assistant Professor of Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School, practicing at the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center. I study primarily the neurobiology of psychotic disorders and the translational predictors of Psychopathology and Disease Neurobiology. I am writing this Letter of Recommendation for Yaqi (Megan) Huang, our intern here at the Harvard Brain Science Initiative who is applying to PsyD programs in Clinical Psychology. I am Megan’s primary clinical supervisor and the co-founder of the ASPIRE Clinic at BIDMC where Megan helps us attend to patients.

It is easy to vouch for the way that Megan represents one of the most talented interns in the program. In fact, she was the only master’s level intern who has ever been accepted to this internship site. Usually, we only hire doctoral-level interns. Megan is with us because of her impeccable credentials, important professional experiences, and her enthusiasm for innovation and creativity in our field. Megan is a great asset to the clinic and adapted quickly to the fast-paced environment of our outpatient clinic: always immersed simultaneously in various treatment modalities. Enormously competent, Megan is also diligent, passionate, supportive, easy to work with, and interpersonally savvy. As reliable and trustworthy as she is talented, Megan always gets things done on time and invariably does a marvelous job. She is a highly ethical clinician who knows what to do and what not to do. She always comes to therapy sessions and our supervision appointments well-prepared. Megan takes criticism with exceptional grace and implements the counsel that she receives from her mentors. Organized, flexible, and highly motivated, Megan presents with clinical maturity and impeccable acumen. She knows what she wants and lobbies for training in the areas she finds most fascinating. Megan will be missed sorely at the Lizano Lab once she is no longer with us.

Megan demonstrated excellent alliance-building capabilities with early-psychotic clients that prompted them to trust her, open to her, and experience intense emotions during our sessions. Practicing CBT for Psychosis for the first time in her life, Megan learned quickly and demonstrated great clinical intuition, acuity, and flexibility in providing quality and effective cognitive therapy for our clients. As a counseling practicum student, Megan advocated for herself for various other training opportunities, such as brief neuropsychological testing, that align with her career goals. Passionate about her work, and always eager to learn, Megan is a talented researcher who gives excellent presentations at our staff meetings. She is especially highly motivated to co-develop an evidence-based protocol for a new line of treatment provided by the clinic, exercising leadership with this issue while still an intern. While Megan has no previous exposure to Cognitive Enhancement Therapy, she participates in the CET groups and takes charge of all the material preparation. She is also involved in family support services, helping our multi-family groups to support family members with their daily distress and to develop behavioral activation plans and solutions to real-life problems.

Please feel free to contact me if I can provide you with any further information concerning Megan’s candidacy for selection to your doctoral program.

Sincerely,