Thanks so much to everyone who's emailed me about the blog, it's great to know that people are reading it!
A couple of the emails I've received have led me to think about writing a publication (e-book?) about clinical psychology training so I have been busy making a start on writing it and hope it may be available September-ish.
So far it is more factual than the blog and will be focussed on the first year of training. I'm very aware of not wanting to position myself as any form of 'expert' in the business of clinical psychology training and feel it is important to state from the outset that it will be based on one person's experience and will thus be limited. However, by sharing what I have experienced of training to date I hope to give a flavour of what the day-to-day experience of training may be like.
Topics will include:
The University Experience -
Induction
Core competencies of training
Academic work
Research
Personal and professional development
The Placement Experience -
Pre-placement planning
Contracts
Observations
Placement reviews and assessment of your competencies
Supervision and how to problem solve
Note keeping and confidentiality
Caseload and competencies logs
The Clinical Experience -
Initial sessions (Introducing yourself, hypothesising, preparing the therapeutic space, skills of engagement, client expectations)
Assessment
Formulation
Case studies of client work that you can use to have a go at formulating
Models of Intervention
Endings
Cognitive assessment
General -
Financial aspects of training
Pros and cons of therapy
I hope it sounds interesting?! Please let me know what you think!
If you would like to be kept updated about when the book will be available and how to get hold of a copy, please email me: myclinpsychlife@gmail.com
I'd also be really grateful if you could include an idea of what you would most value learning from the book.
Other possible ideas might be:
Insights into working with particular clinical populations e.g. People with learning disabilities, older people, children
Ideas about working with particular clinical difficulties e.g. Depression, anxiety, substance use etc
Using a particular approach e.g. CBT, DBT, CAT, systemic, psychodynamic
Managing time demands of training
Ideas about certain epistemological approaches e.g. Social constructionist
Or all or none of the above or something completely different! All ideas are welcome....
Thanks!
Do you consider yourself a 'leader'? Increasingly, the NHS are looking to clinical psychologists to be leaders, so much so that BPS guidelines are soon to be including leadership skills as a core competency. I have mixed feelings about this development. Personally, I didn't pursue this career to be a 'leader' I came to work in a therapeutic way with clients in distress. My assumption is that the more time I spend leading, the less this I will have to work in this direct way with clients (and this is borne out in my observations of supervisors with leadership responsibility).
Despite this, I can see that clinical psychologists are relatively well paid in comparison to other health professionals in the NHS and it is only right that we should justify this in the form of extra responsibilities in the cash strapped NHS. Besides, when less qualified individuals can deliver CBT at half the cost, why would service providers choose us to do so?
A final thought is an optimistic one. If Clinical Psychologists are leading services then surely this will mean the NHS will become more psychologically minded? The medical model prevails but with services being led by clinical psychologists willing to step up and speak out, who knows where they could lead the NHS of the future.
