The Placement

 

 

My placement year involved working as an Honorary Student Psychologist at the Dorset Community Pain Service. This was a voluntary clinical placement. My role was to assist the Clinical Psychologists and the Assistant Psychologists. This involved literature research for new therapies, co-facilitating group therapy programmes, and also assisting in an audit of the service with the Assistant Psychologist. I was also able to assist on creating care pathways for Adult Mental Health, as well as shadow psychologists in other areas, such as Paediatrics, Adoption and Fostering, and Child and Adolescent Mental Health.

 

 

Skills

 

Within this role I was able to apply some of the skills I had learnt in the first two years of my degree. For example, statistics (and using SPSS) and report writing were integral when performing the service audit. I was able to apply theories and knowledge from some of the lectures on clinical psychology and neuropsychology to this role, in order to understand pain and some of the clinical symptoms patients had. 

 

 

The Application Process

 

Clinical placements are highly sought-after, so to secure my placement, I emailed every contact I could find within Dorset Healthcare (and related charities) asking about potential placements. This was because there were not very many advertised jobs in this area. This process took several months, but eventually, I got in contact with the Trust Lead and Head of Psychology at Dorset Healthcare. The Trust Lead was passionate about getting people the experience they needed for a career in clinical psychology, so she was more than happy to help.

 

Advice

 

If you want a career in Clinical Psychology, my advice would be to try and obtain an Assistant Psychologist position. These can hard to get for a placement (due to limited positions), but having related experience in your placement year may help you get one of those jobs post-graduation. Other related roles include therapy/rehabilitation assistants, support workers, and volunteering for mental health charities. These would all be highly relevant for a career in Clinical Psychology.