Clinical Psychology

The University of Essex is one of the UK´s leading academic institutions, ranked ninth nationally for research excellence following the most recent Research Assessment Exercise (RAE).

Our DClinPsych Doctorate in Clinical Psychology has been developed in partnership with commissioners from the East of England Strategic Health Authority, our University, the Tavistock and Portman NHS Foundation Trust, and NHS Trusts based in the Essex region. It is accredited by the British Psychological Society (BPS) and approved by the Health Professions Council (HPC).

Our programme benefits from the input and support of clinicians based in Essex and at the Tavistock and Portman NHS Foundation Trust. These clinicians also contribute to the teaching, research, placements and other operational activities. The Tavistock and Portman NHS Foundation Trust has a national role in providing mental health training with a particular emphasis on multi-disciplinary work.

With a relatively small number of trainees in each cohort, we offers trainees the opportunity to work very closely with our staff and with one another. Such close working relationships, combined with robust and holistic support systems for trainees’ personal and professional development, provides an optimal training experience and foundation for trainees’ career-long personal and professional development.

Our programme is particularly well-integrated with local research and clinical networks. Clinicians working in the region (and often within North Essex Partnership Foundation Trust (NEPFT)) contribute directly through teaching, supervision (on placements and as field research supervisors) and other aspects of the programme. This close collaboration provides many opportunities for ensuring strong theory-practice integration.

Our programme is grounded in an integrative approach to therapeutic approaches. Our link with the Tavistock further contributes to the integrative nature of the programme and contributes to the research and clinical excellence of the programme.

Our programme aims to hone the critical and reflective competencies of trainees and to produce competent clinicians who are able to function as autonomous applied psychologists/scientist-practitioners in a fast-changing health service context. We provide learning opportunities for developing flexibility, leadership skills and reflective practice that are essential to meet the challenges faced by the profession of clinical psychology and by health services.

Training on our programme is a collaborative enterprise that can only succeed with the involvement, input and consultation of all stakeholders including trainees, clients, carers, NHS services and Trusts, local clinicians and professional/regulatory bodies. We continue to develop ways of including all stakeholders in the ongoing development in order to remain grounded in and responsive to local mental health needs.

Our trainees are adult learners and junior colleagues who co-contribute to the overall training programme and one another’s training experience. Our staff places a premium on clear communication and consultation in decision making, incorporating the views of trainees, service users and other stakeholders in the effective delivery of the training programme.

We equip trainees to apply psychological knowledge and theory to research and practice in the service of reducing psychological distress and promoting/enhancing psychological well-being. We also equip trainee clinical psychologists with the full set of competencies required of clinical psychologists by the HPC and the BPS. However, the competent clinical psychologist is more than the sum total of a number of competencies; throughout, the reflective and integrative focus of the programme enables trainees to develop all competencies required of clinical psychologists but also to develop meta-competencies required for reflective, integrative, ethical, autonomous research and evidence-based practice.

As an integrative programme, we do not focus narrowly on any particular model or approach, but instead draw on a number of different models and approaches including behavioural, cognitive-behavioural, psychodynamic, systemic and integrative approaches alongside developmental, socio-political, critical and other perspectives. Alongside this, we are committed to recognising, accommodating and embracing diversity. This is reflected in the recruitment/selection of trainees and throughout the training, which emphasises the importance of developing cultural and diversity-related competence in research and clinical practice.

Our teaching philosophy underpinning the training is the integration of academic, research and clinical practice learning. To this end, trainees are encouraged to be active participants in their training, and to reflect constructively and analytically upon the work in which they are engaged.