Dear prospective clinical psychologists
Choosing which courses to apply for to undertake your professional clinical training is one of the most important decisions in your journey towards becoming a clinical psychologist.
27 October 2022
There are many factors which may influence this decision, all of which will shape your experiences as a trainee clinical psychologist, and the clinician you will become.
These include the selection procedures, the course content, location, theoretical orientations, staff research interests, placement opportunities and support structures available.
The Division of Clinical Psychology (DCP) Pre-Qualification Group (PQG) represents those before training (pre-training) and in-training (i.e. current trainees) within the DCP.
You can visit the DCP Prequalification Group website to learn about member benefits, access helpful resources such as Top Tips for Child Placement and find a list of national aspiring psychologist support groups.
The website also contains information on the group's activities, including information on upcoming events and recordings of previous webinars.
You can keep up to date with the group by following us on social media:
- Facebook: DCPPreQual
- Twitter: @DCPPreQual
- Instagram: dcpprequal
- LinkedIn: Division of Clinical Psychology Pre-Qualification Group
To join the DCP Pre-qualification Group you'll need to also become a member of the British Psychological Society (BPS).
We proudly present The Alternative Handbook 2022: A trainee's guide to postgraduate clinical psychology courses.
In this publication, we have asked the current trainees from across all year groups to tell us what it is like to be a trainee on these courses.
Overall, the information provided here aims to give you a flavour of what it is really like to be a trainee at the courses which interest you.
In light of the Covid-19 pandemic, we also asked current trainees to answer questions related to how their course responded and supported them throughout the pandemic.
Each year we strive to gain a realistic account of trainees' perspectives on the different courses and we could not do that without the time taken by current trainees to respond to our questions.
We would like to extend our sincere gratitude to all respondents of this year's survey and thank each trainee for their input.
We are sure that the comments provided will be invaluable in helping you, as aspiring clinical psychologists, to consider and plan your application for training.
Furthermore, this publication would not be possible without the hard work and dedication of our colleagues on the DCP Pre-Qualification Group Committee and the BPS staff working behind the scenes – a huge thank you to all our colleagues who have worked diligently to produce this publication.
From the 2020–2021 Division of Clinical Psychology Pre-Qualification Group Committee, we wish you the best of luck with all of your career developments.