Aspirations to pursue a PhD in Clinical Psychology

Hello everybody,

I'm looking to find out whether I HAVE to take a psychology conversion course before applying for a PhD in Clinical Pychology considering my current education history includes
a First Class Honours in BSc Biomedical Sciences (75%) and an MSc Neuroscience (Merit)?

My employment history includes:
8 months as a dementia care assistant
5 months as a community care assistant (domiciliary)

Many thanks,
psychologywannab

Reply 1

Interrobang

Yes you will if you don't have a BPS accredited psychology course I'm afraid

Reply 2

DataVenia

Volunteer Team, Clearing and Applications Advisor

The short answer is, "Yes". The long answer is below.

Is your aim to become a practicing Clinical Psychologist - i.e. to help patients - or to do Clinical Psychology research?

I ask as a PhD in Clinical Psychology won't allow you to practice as a Clinical Psychologist. A PhD is a research degree (in the UK; other countries may use the term differently). To become a practicing Clinical Psychologist you need a professional doctorate in Clinical Psychology; it's still a doctorate, but it's not a PhD. It goes by various names: D.Clin.Psy, ClinPsyD, DClinPsychol, etc. I'm going to assume that this is the type of doctorate you're looking for.

So, to practice as a Clinical Psychologist (and to use that job title) you need to be registered with the Health and Care Professions Council (HCPC) as a "Practitioner Psychologist" (a horrible term, but there you go). To register with the HCPC you need to complete one of their "approved" courses. You can see a list of their approved "Practitioner Psychologist" courses, where the Modality (yes, that's what they call it) is "Clinical Psychologist" at https://www.hcpc-uk.org/education/approved-programmes/approved-programmes-results/?ProviderQueryString=&Professions=270450012&Modalities=270450003&IntakeModes=Open&PageSize=15.

That will give you a list of 36 approved programmes - all professional doctorates. So, you're real question is, "Given my current level of education and experience, can I apply to one of these 36 approved programmes?"

Applications to most (but not all) of those approved programmes are handled centrally by the "Clearing House for Postgraduate Courses in Clinical Psychology" (CHPCCP) based at Leeds University. See https://www.leeds.ac.uk/chpccp/. Their entry requirement page - see https://www.leeds.ac.uk/chpccp/entryacademic.html - refers to the Graduate Basis for Chartered Membership (GBC) and says, "You will need to provide a document that confirms your GBC status with your application" and the documents page - https://www.leeds.ac.uk/chpccp/docsukirish.html - says that you must provide "a document confirming your status for GBC" which could be an "Undergraduate degree accredited for GBC" or a "Postgraduate conversion course accredited for GBC". So, clearly you need GBC. Your BSc Biomedical Sciences won't have provided it - hence you need a conversion course.

You gain Graduate Basis for Chartered Membership (GBC) by taking a course - accredited by the British Psychological Society (BPS) - which confers Graduate Basis for Chartered Membership upon you. You can find a list of accredit conversion courses at https://www.bps.org.uk/public/become-psychologist/accredited-courses. Do make sure you click-through to check the details of the course you're interested in. It must say, "this degree confers eligibility for the Graduate Basis for Chartered Membership."

I mentioned above that applications to most HCPC-approved programmes and handled centrally by CHPCCP. I'm not aware of those which are not being listed anywhere - you'd need to compare the HCPC list of approved programmes with the list of courses which you can apply for via CHPCCP. You could then check the entry requirements of each of those courses. However, I'm sure that they'll mandate GBC too.

Finally (sorry for the long post) I note that the CHPCCP says this, which might be relevant to you:

"For the majority of courses there is no accreditation of prior learning or experience: all trainees must complete the full programme of training to qualify. Attendance throughout the course is mandatory, including the induction period. The exceptions are the University of Edinburgh and the University of Glasgow, both of which consider certain masters degrees for recognition of prior learning."

I hope this helps. (Obviously if you really were looking for advice on a PhD - i.e. a research degree - the ignore all of the above!)

(edited 2 years ago)

Reply 3

Kaila2464

Original post by psychologywannab

Yep you will have to make sure the conversion course is accredited to BPS. I am soon to start my undergraduate psychology course and then go into clinical psychology

Reply 4

Lord Asriel

Original post by psychologywannab

At the very minimum you will need a BPS recognised degree that confers graduate basis of recognition and a lot more clinical experience. You have described about a year of experience with relatively little clinical psychology exposure, with probably no psychological supervision competing against veteran assistant psychologists, people with PhDs and IAPT workers.

Aspirations to pursue a PhD in Clinical Psychology

Quick Reply

Related discussions

Latest

Trending

Trending

Articles for you