So You Want a PhD in Clinical Psychology?

STOP and READ this before you decide to become a Psychologist!

If you are thinking about doing a psychology degree in Australia, or training to become a psychologist, please stop to spend time reading this first.

I wrote this because I wanted to share my “insiders” perspective with anyone contemplating investing years of their life and a lot of money training to be a psychologist. Training to be a psychologist can be a very rewarding experience however, it is important that before you decide to take the plunge, you learn about the process of psychological training first, so your decision to become a psychologist can be an accurate and enjoyable decision. I write this at a time when I am weeks away from registering as a provisional psychologist myself and after my long journey to get here, I wanted to pass on my knowledge. I welcome your feedback to help make improvements to this page for the benefit of all.

The sections of this blog post are as follows:

• So you want to become a psychologist?
• What happens after your 4 years of study?
• Seems like a whole lot of study for me. Is there another way for me to become a counsellor/psychotherapist?

• Why doesn’t everyone become a counsellor then?
• 
Ok, I’ve decided I want to become a psychologist, however what can help me get through the statistical analyses and interpretations? Any other good resources you can recommend?
• Isn’t the 2 year supervision option (4+2) getting scrapped?
• Shouldn’t I apply then to do a Masters of Psychology (Clinical) course to be safe?
• Anything else I need to know before I take the plunge?

So you want to become a psychologist?

When people tend to talk about wanting to become a psychologist, they tend to specifically mean they want to become counselling psychologists.  This is no surprise as psychology is mostly known to the public as a “healing profession”. Psychology is, of course, a lot broader than this, but most depictions of psychologists in the media and society are the images of psychologists that help others deal with clinical or personal problems. The popular tv show “Dr. Phil” has help cement this stereotype of the profession in people’s minds further. Hence when people first enter psychology training programs, motivated by the want to become counselling psychologists, they tend to mistakenly believe that they will be learning about the counselling components of psychology and perhaps getting practical, hands on experience in psychology training. In reality, you will instead spend the first four years learning close to nothing about counselling or doing anything remotely “hands on” at all. This usually comes as a big surprise and shock to many.

As psychology is a science, training in psychology programs are conducted under the umbrella philosophy of the “scientist practitioner” model. I won’t burden you with the unnecessary details, but it is a training philosophy that in a nutshell, guides psychology training programs around the world to produce scientists as its first priority, scientists who then take good scientific practice into their line of work as psychologists. Psychology is a science that deals in a lot more areas than just the counselling areas of psychology, and includes such areas as sports psychology, education psychology, developmental psychology, organisational psychology, forensic psychology, consumer psychology, ergonomics and so forth; the psychology training program in the first 4 years therefore generically trains you to become a capable scientist able to do scientific research in any of these speciality areas of psychology later in Masters or Doctoral programs (your 5th, 6th and 7th years). It is also in your 5th, 6th and 7th years where you get to do practical “hands on” work, usually through an internship or placement.

So what does the typical 3/4 year training program in psychology cover? In Australia, the Australian Psychology Society (APS), the psychology professions industry body, has to accredit the courses to make sure the content taught is standardised. Therefore no matter what University you go to study psychology, whilst Universities may decide to call the subjects by slightly different names, you will essentially learn the same thing.  Below are the minimum 9+1 APS required subjects required, in order for you to qualify to apply to a 4th year course. I have taken this from Monash University’s handbook, where I did my Graduate Diploma, but as I’ve previously just stated, all Universities will be offering essentially the same content in slightly different names.

•    PSY1011 Psychology 1A

•    PSY1022 Psychology 1B

•    PSY2031 Developmental and biological psychology

•    PSY2042 Cognitive and social psychology

•    PSY2051 Research design and analysis (Pure Statistics)

•    PSY3032 Abnormal psychology

•    PSY3041 Psychological testing, theories of ability and ethics

•    PSY3051 Perception and personality

•    PSY3062 Research methods and theory (Pure Statistics)

The common theme among these subjects is that for your assignments, you will have to produce a report based on some form of statistical analysis. Moreover, your success in the course will be largely determined by your ability to understand and carry out statistical analyses. So whilst the individual subject may be entitled “personality”, the assignment requirements, for example, may ask you in the to analyse data from a personality test and likely examine ways in which personality factors influence another variable. For example you may look at the question: Are people with extroverted personalities and binge drinking related? Hence, you will be given a data set and asked to statistically examine data say from NEO-PI and AUDIT tests. It’s not important that you understand what those tests are, the main point I am trying to get across is that the common theme between these 9 psychology subjects is they all involve producing reports where the key requirement is the successful analyses and interpretation of statistical results.

Images like these will become your new best friends in psychology.

In addition to the aforementioned 9 subjects you do in your first three years, you also have to choose an elective subject. The elective subject, each University have some flexibility over; so it is likely there you will have the opportunity to experience an area of psychology of your personal preference. I have listed below the elective subjects, Monash offers to give you an idea. Keep in mind, you will still likely have to produce a report for these subjects, again largely based on statistical analyses.

•    PSY2112 Organisational psychology

•    PSY3120 Introduction to counselling

•    PSY3150 Contemporary social psychology

•    PSY3180 Human neuropsychology: Developmental and neurodegenerative disorders

•    PSY3190 Addiction studies

•    PSY3230 Psychological foundations of the law

•    PSY3240 Psychology of music

•    PSY3250 Positive psychology

So that is a summary of what you will cover in your “3 year program”. If you decide to do your “3 year program” as part of a Graduate Diploma of Psychology (a degree typically for those who wish to come back to University to retrain as a psychologist), you will only have to do the 9+1 subjects. Some Universities offer this Graduate Diploma of Psychology, “3 year program”, over a 1 year intensive courses such as Deakin University. Whilst at Monash, for example, they spread the 9+1 out over the three years. However, if you are going to University for the first time and planning on doing a Bachelor of Psychology degree or similar, it is likely you will have to do the 9+1 subjects,  plus all the elective subjects too.

Now, assuming you have obtained very good grades (minimum 75%-85%) in your 3rd year subjects, you will be eligible to apply to do your 4th year program. The 4th year program can be completed as an honours degree or post-graduate diploma; again as these courses are APS accredited, the requirements of the content across Universities and course names are effectively the same. Most Universities will advertise the course, no matter the name, as their “4th year program”. The differences between Universities and specific course names, are likely grade requirements and costs involved. Despite some confusion, an honours degree or post-graduate diploma is not more ‘prestigious’ than the other; at least not in Psychology, since the course content and assessment requirements are standardised. Traditionally an honours degree has been used as a ‘stepping stone’ into doing a PhD (which does not help you register as a psychologist).

The 4th year program is similar to the first 3 years, in that you again do more ‘core’ generic subjects, except that you will also have to produce a thesis, or empirical report. This empirical report, is just like all the other reports you have produced for the last 3 years but it is of a larger scale. I won’t go into the details too much, because in this sense the requirements of what is expected for your empirical report can differ between Universities and even individual supervisors. For example, I had to build my questionnaire, collect the data, compile the data and conduct my own analyses without guidance from my supervisor; whilst other students in my course were given by their supervisor, ready data files already typed up with PASW syntax (statistical analyses instructions) provided to them. So at this point in your studies, you should be prepared to stand on your own two feet and hope that 3 years of producing statistical based reports, will now pay off.

So going back to where this all began, if you are the counselor type, eager to get some practical experience or engage in some self-reflective experiences, then you may be disappointed by what psychology will offer you in the first 4 years of your studies. Please keep in mind, I am not sharing this information to put you off, or scare you, or in any way denigrate psychology training (I actually believe the scientific practitioner model, to be highly valuable and essential). However, if you are contemplating doing a psychology degree, perhaps straight out of high school, you should be aware that this is what actually happens in a psychology degree. In addition, let this also be a big warning to the person naïvely contemplating studying psychology to “discover yourself”; this is probably the worst way imaginable to “discover yourself”!  Alternatively, if you have psychological problems and would like to fix them, this is not the place to do it either. You should seek professional help: it would be a lot cheaper and a lot less stressful!

Becoming a psychologist is a long and intellectually demanding journey, but for those determined to succeed and have a realistic appreciation of what is actually involved, then I have no doubt you will excel. To make life easier for you, I have listed below some essential resources and must buy books, that will be essential to help you with the statistical analyses and interpretations that every psych student first dreads. If you can master these, everything is otherwise very manageable. Believe it or not,  you will grow to enjoy doing statistical analyses.

What happens after your 4 years of study?

Once you have done your 4 years of training, you then can register as a “provisional psychologist” with the Psychology Board of Australia; which means you can gain fully registration by either doing 2 years of practical supervision, a 2 years Masters degree, or a 3/4 year Professional Doctorate degree (note this is not a PhD) to become a fully registered “psychologist”.

Seems like a whole lot of study for me. Is there another way for me to become a counsellor/psychotherapist?


Yes. To become a counsellor, you do not need to become a psychologist.  The term “counsellor” or “psychotherapist” are not legally protected job titles, unlike “psychologist” which is.  Therefore, you could technically speaking become a “counsellor” without doing a day of study! That said, there are many courses out there you should consider which will teach you the skills necessary to become a counsellor in a much shorter time frame than the minimum 6 years, it will take you to become a “counselling psychologist”. Best of all, you will not likely have to ever do statistics and the training is likely to be all hands on, practical learning. You may save yourself some heartache with this option, if spending many years in front of a statistics program is just not for you.

Why doesn’t everyone become a counsellor then?

Becoming a psychologist, allows your clients to get medicare rebates for your time and perhaps this is worth the extra investment. In addition, becoming a psychologist also opens up other doors not necessarily related to counselling. I am, for example, personally interested in working in organisational, sport, military and/or consumer psychology myself.


Ok, I’ve decided I want to become a psychologist, however what can help me get through the statistical analyses and interpretations? Any other good resources you can recommend?

Thankfully, there are many good resources available to help. There are some excellent materials out there that will help you undertake a psychology degree with less pain and suffering, even if you were not born to study statistics. I consider these resources “absolute essentials” for your success. If you are a first year psychology student, don’t waste any more time… go out and buy these now (you’ll thank me later).

The first must buy is the APA (American Psychological Association) Publication Manual. This book will teach you how to write your reports according to the APA format. All of your reports and assignments will require you to present your information and reference according to these strict and, often at times, pedantic rules. You can’t escape this. Following the APA format is what writing psychology reports is all about. This book will be your bible throughout your entire psychology studies and you will refer to it in every assignment you submit. Don’t waste your time trying to borrow it from your library, every other psychology student will want it and it will likely always be on loan when you need it most. Really don’t think twice about this purchase. The latest version is the 6th edition.

The second must buy book is the APA “Presenting Your Findings” book. The APA probably realised the way they could make more money is by creating a separate book on presenting your statistical results, when in actual fact it could have been included in the APA Publication Manual. Again, the rules dictating how you have to present your statistical data are non-negotiable and need to be strictly adhered to. This is your second bible. Thankfully, these two bibles are inexpensive to purchase on Amazon, but still, it would have been nice if the APA put it all in the one book.

The third and final must buy book is Julie Pallant’s “SPSS Survival Guide”. This book will take you through all of your statistical analyses in SPSS/PASW and go through step by step, easy to follow instructions on what to do. In addition, it will tell you how to interpret your results, things to look out for and give you an example of how to write your results up in your reports. You will use this book, like the APA books, over and over again in every assignment. If you want to save some money, you don’t have to, in my opinion, buy the 4th edition (which is the latest version); the 3rd edition will suffice.

The only optional, but highly recommend, text book I wish to mention is Andy Field’s “Discovering Statistics with SPSS”. Like Julie’s book, this book provides easy to follow interpretations of SPSS outputs and explains in more depth why you might choose one statistical test over the other. It really is the most complete statistics text book out there for psych students. There is a very good chance that Andy Field’s book will be actually be prescribed as part of one of your statistics subjects.

Whilst we are on recommendations, I also want to mention the EndNote software program.  Thankfully, most Universities will allow students to obtain a free copy of this through your library. So speak to them first before you purchase this!

EndNote, is a powerful academic reference software program. It will automatically write your reference list according to the strict APA format and serve as a database tool to store all of your academic journal articles that you download and use for the production of reports. It usually has a plugin that works with Microsoft Office, so you can just “click” on the journal article you want to reference via EndNote, and it will automatically format the reference in your Word document. This software program saves you HOURS of time. Nothing is worse than writing a report and then spending hours at the end of it, writing up your reference list manually. (Again, you’ll thank me later!)

Isn’t the 2 year supervision option (4+2) getting scrapped?

There have been endless rumours that the Psychology Board of Australia may be scrapping the 2 years of practical experience option mentioned earlier (the rumour has occurred for at least more than 10+ years as far as I am aware), but nothing has eventuated. The reason this rumour is still hanging around, I suspect, is because the ‘industry requirement’ of requiring students to obtain Masters and Doctoral degrees, is something the profession has evolved to and not always been ‘required’. The general ‘upskilling’ of the profession is something that has occurred over time. Therefore the psychology industry is filled with many highly experienced, excellent psychologists, who may have for example 25+ years of experience up their sleeves, who have not undertaken a Masters/Doctorate degree and instead chose to acquire their registration as psychologists via supervision. No one could now suggest to them that a life time of experience they have acquired, would now only be of value, if the board forced these people back to do a Masters/Doctorate degree (where they would go under supervision again). Hence, I suspect the rumours of the board scrapping the 4+2 experience option will continue to exist but actually, I believe the status quo on this issue will remain.

Shouldn’t I apply then to do a Masters of Psychology (Clinical) course to be safe?

As these courses are in such high demand, a 4th year student should not in my opinion reasonably expect that they will get in, as the demand drives up the minimum grade average required; the cut off marks for many courses are reported in the mid to high 80s. Moreover, at this level of competition, Universities are not only looking at your grades, they are looking at your work experience, life experience and individual maturity. So if you have come straight out of high school, knocked out your 4 years of statistical reports and obtained great grades; there is still no guarantee you will get in due to lack of work or life experience. So if you have finished your 4th year and yet to take the time out to do some travelling, or perhaps spent time volunteering for an organisation like LifeLine, now might be the time to do it. Alternatively you could do a Masters degree in Psychology that does not specialise in clinical psychology. This might not necessarily be a bad option because Universities have begun to offer Post Graduate Diploma courses that are for psychologists who, undertook Masters degrees in other areas of psychology other than clinical, and wish to obtain the minimum requirements so they can register as “clinical psychologists”. So don’t fear, there are options if you don’t get into a Masters of Clinical course.

Anything else I need to know before I take the plunge?

My tongue in cheek response is yes, be prepared for everyone you now meet and interact with, after telling them you are training to be a psychologist to then ask you with a worried look on their face “so are you reading my mind now?”. You can politely smile and say “Yes, I’m detecting that you are fearing what I might be thinking, about what you are thinking”… of course, only say this if you wish to never have any friends again. Alternatively, after many years of statistical reporting and analysis, you can state to people who ask you such questions, “I cannot read your mind, I merely analyse statistical data that allows me to make inferences based on past research, whilst being careful not to overstate my results”, completely discounting your intuitive instincts that have since been long forgotten, which ironically probably motivated you to become a psychologist in the first place. Oh, and you will need to be super nice to everyone so they don’t think you have gone “crazy” because people will probably also ask you: “Aren’t psychologists crazy?”. Besides from being repulsed that such unscientific terms like “crazy” are even allowed to exist, you could always respond: “Let’s assume you are right, that all psychologists are indeed crazy. What better job than for a crazy person to help other crazy people feel better about themselves?” Welcome to Psychology! 😉

Any other questions. Please get in touch by leaving a comment on my blog. I will do my best to answer your questions. All the best to your future endeavours.

Is honesty the best policy?

I had a friend tell me recently she couldn’t be completely honest with her long-term partner. They have been together for many years and are otherwise, at least on the outside, happy. She felt that being completely honest with her partner, this would not lead to a better relationship, so there were some things that were not said in the relationship, essentially secrets kept, to keep the relationship on smooth sailing.

Her story intrigued me, as I have always believed that complete honesty is the only way to engage in a long-term relationship with a girl/boyfriend, partner, husband/wife. If you are not being completely honest with your significant other, then who is the person, your partner believes they are with? If your partner only gets a glimpse into who you actually are, then how can they ever really love/connect with you? I suggest that until you are completely honest in your relationship, then the love/connection they have for you, is merely a love/connection for the idea or image you have projected of yourself. By being dishonest, or rather, withholding aspects of yourself, you are denying your true self, rather than your projected (idealised) self, the chance to be completely loved/connected with and appreciated. I believe this, because I don’t believe in people who are “perfect”, but I do believe that loving someone for who they are (flaws and all), is a more perfect kind of love/connection.

What do you think? Is honesty always the best policy? Does a “love me or leave me” approach work for you? Is this approach even appealing?

An obvious question arises in this discussion. How can we be sure that we know ourselves accurately enough to be able to be completely honest with someone else? Many of us, can fall into the traps of self-delusion believing that we are something, or possess certain characteristics, that perhaps we actually do not. In some extreme examples, I have met individuals who have confessed that they do not understand what the concept of “self-awareness” means. Sometimes this lack of awareness about ourselves is not a conscious decision we make, rather sometimes it is the result of environmental conditioning; perhaps due to psychological scars occurred during childhood or perhaps alternatively ‘baggage’ we inherited from a previous relationship. For whatever the reasons, sometimes we decide that is best not to think about things that make us uncomfortable, those ‘uncomfortable truths’. Nevertheless, if we lack insight into the underlying motivations of why we feel a particular way, then it would be challenging if not impossible to be truly honest with our partners.

I suggest that the way we can get around this dilemma is to approach our relationships, new or old, with the goal of being committed to each others long-term growth. That is, in order to discover someone else and to allow someone else to discover us, we must both be open to each others growth. We should grant the other person the patience to grow, and at times, make mistakes whilst they unravel their inner true selves. Yes, this does place us at risk of potentially getting hurt. However, if we do not allow our partner to discover themselves and allow ourselves the ability to be honest with ourselves, we miss the opportunity to have a relationship built on honesty.

If we can achieve a relationship that places completely honesty and growth as its core principles, the bond and strength that relationship will achieve will be tremendous. It is these core principles that are the basis of genuine trust, commitment, and love. It is for these reasons, I put forward that honesty is indeed the best policy.