I chose the supervisor and the thesis followed from there. I am hugely grateful to have a highly skilled, competent, organised and responsive supervisor. Research supervision always leaves me feeling positive about myself and the project, even when things are tricky. I know that's definitely not the...

Firstly, try not to panic! While some people get on to the doctorate shortly after undergrad, for most people it is years not months. I graduated into the last recession and my cohort had a similar experience of everything stalling for a few months. So try to shift your perspective to the bigger pic...

I've also had a confidentiality breach along the journey - I suspect most clinicians have. (In fact, writing this post has made me reflect on a lot of other types of mistakes along the way that have led me to question my suitability for the role... Phoning my service manager at 9pm to admit to losin...

A few years ago many IAPT services employed people without the low intensity PGCert if they had relevant experience or potential, particularly in the third sector. Nowadays I think the qualification is essential for the role after national guidance was released, but you would almost certainly be eli...

Thanks for all of your replies, they were really helpful in understanding what my options were and how to go about it. I am in the process of applying to drop to part-time hours. I am hopeful this will be approved, but I am currently managing a return to work on full-time hours, with advice/permissi...

I think we're at cross purposes about the point I was trying to make there. I was criticising the logical leaps in his argument and the blurring of evidence and interpretation in his interviews. I didn't share my views on nuclear families, so while yours are interesting and thanks for the references...

I trained a teacher originally and I put that in the proper job list, emphasising the aspects of it that were applicable to clinical psychology in the description of my duties (e.g. being a personal tutor). I also had some much more irrelevant jobs (e.g. customer service temp jobs after uni) that I ...

I have a MEd Psychology of Education and am currently a clinical psychology trainee - I got interviews for 5 of my 8 applications. Try to pick more clinical modules, assignments and research if possible - e.g.. stress, autism, LD, counselling. I have found my knowledge of some areas of clinical is ...

I have a MEd Psychology of Education and am currently a clinical psychology trainee - I got interviews for 5 of my 8 applications. Try to pick more clinical modules, assignments and research if possible - e.g.. stress, autism, LD, counselling. I have found my knowledge of some areas of clinical is w...

I am looking for some advice about working part-time during and after training. I am a current trainee and have a long-term health condition that can flare up, making working full-time at best tiring, at worst impossible due to symptoms and fatigue. I've coped with the last few months by making prag...

Every clinical psychology trainee has to demonstrate competence in 2 areas of therapy, and one of these must be CBT - so you definitely won't get around CBT, but choose your university carefully and you can have a wide choice of second specialism. My experience of CBT in clinical psychology is that ...

I would definitely have put myself in this camp before starting the doctorate. Likewise, I always did well in it in my pre-academic life, but never felt 'comfortable' with it. I would recommend doing some reflection on why you don't enjoy it. For example, I have learned that the context really matte...

The idea of working incredibly hard for years in order to get ahead and overcome anything I lack only to be immediately shot down one day and have my dreams crushed because I scored 115 on an IQ test instead of 130 like some of the other applicants is very scary indeed. Further, I don't know how mu...

I have seen plenty of counselling psychologists working at a high level in the NHS - certainly at 8a and 8b, and in child/adult services where therapy is the main form of intervention. Many jobs now will advertise for counselling or clinical psychologists. Although you are right, there are roles and...

My work experience was in schools, before moving into psychology and mental health. They are definitely excellent experience in terms of developing your practical human-to-human relational skills, which is ultimately the core of psychology. It's also a very good cross-over between educational and cl...