Brigid Cahill, currently interim director and training program director of the University Counseling Center (UCC), has been named its new director. Ralph Manchester, vice provost and director of University Health Service (UHS), announced the appointment following a national search.
“With the unanimous support of the search committee, I am very enthusiastic about Dr. Cahill becoming our Counseling Center’s new director,” said Manchester. “I have worked with Brigid for many years in her roles as training program director, associate director and interim UCC director, and she is clearly ready to be successful in this leadership position.”
UCC, a unit of UHS, serves students University-wide and provides comprehensive assessments and individualized treatment plans to meet an individual’s mental health and wellness needs. These plans may include recommendations for group therapy, workshops, brief therapy, referrals to a community provider for specialized treatment or longer term therapy services, Therapist Assisted On-line (TAO), case management services, psychiatry or other campus services.
Cahill has been the UCC director of training since 2007, with responsibilities for administering multidisciplinary programs, including the training of psychology doctoral interns, postdoctoral fellows, psychology graduate students, social work interns and psychiatry residents. In 2005 and 2012, she successfully secured reaccreditation of the psychology doctoral internship program by the American Psychological Association, and is currently engaged in the 2019 reaccreditation process.
A licensed psychologist in the State of New York, she received her bachelor’s degree in psychology at St. Mary’s College of Maryland in 1994 and worked first as a pre-professional trainee with the Devereux Foundation near Philadelphia, and then as a research assistant at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston. She received her Ph.D. in clinical-community psychology from the University of South Carolina in 2002, after completing her pre-doctoral internship through the University of Rochester Medical Center’s Department of Psychiatry. After completing a postdoctoral fellowship the University’s Counseling Center, she joined the faculty as staff psychologist.
She enjoys working with a wide variety of students, and has particular counseling expertise in anxiety disorders and working with trauma survivors. Cahill is also a clinical psychiatry faculty member in the School of Medicine and Dentistry.
Said Hochang Lee, chair of URMC’s Department of Psychiatry and the John Romano Professor of Psychiatry: “UCC clinicians are faculty members of URMC and clinicians and teachers of the highest caliber, and we are committed to supporting UCC’s mission. Providing counseling and behavioral health services for University students is of paramount importance to Department of Psychiatry, and the University as a whole,” said Lee.
Cahill is also an active member of the Association of Counseling Center Training Agencies, currently serving on its board of directors.
