How to become a clinical psychologist in the UK

This article has been amended from Episode 73 of The Aspiring Psychologist Podcast. If you'd prefer to listen to it then you can here. You can also watch it on YouTube here.

Hi, welcome along to the Aspiring Psychologist blog. I am Dr. Marianne Trent, and I'm a qualified clinical psychologist. I'm a qualified clinical psychologist with a fractured elbow, which was not on the plan, wasn't on the agenda. And so this episode is gonna be a little bit shorter as yet, it's thrown my life slightly into chaos. So, I hope you'll find this quick overview useful about how you go about becoming a clinical psychologist in the UK. That is, if you are a UK resident, I will aim to do future content for how you do conversions in future. But if that is of interest to you, you could listen to an episode I did with Michaela Thomas, which is episode 61 of the Aspiring Psychologist Podcast. So I hope you'll find this really useful. We have of course got compassionate Q and as you can catch up on, and the next one is coming to you on the 2nd of May.

Watch out on my socials for those. And yeah, all of the replays are easily available from my YouTube, Dr. Marianne Trent. If you've got any ideas for future podcast episodes, then please do let me know. I will briefly go through what the process is to become a clinical psychologist in the uk. So it is a three year professional doctorate qualification. The majority of places are NHS funded band six level, but it is also possible on some courses, I think there's maybe three, four, maybe five courses that accept self-funding, but that's not done without due consideration because you'd need to pay the expenses, which I think are about 30 grand a year, I think.

And you'd need to also pay your own living expenses to be able to afford food, rent, fuel all of those things. So it's not a small amount of money. Sometimes people's employers ask them to well, they, they agree to fund it for them. So that also is a possibility if you're not feeling particularly flush. But even then, even if you want to self-fund, it's still incredibly, you know, competitive to get a place and they're not going to let you get onto that doctorate. If you haven't got the appropriate skills, qualifications, and expertise. So by the time you have an interview for the doctorate in clinical psychology, whether that is self-funded or whether that is taught, you will have an undergraduate degree which confers, which offers you the graduate basis for registration with the British Psychological Society. You may also see that called the GBM graduate basis for membership.

I think something like that. But it changed a few years ago, so you might see GBR or GBM, both is fine. But yes, that's not enough usually. Usually you may have done some additional qualifications, you may have done a postgraduate certificate, you may have done a master's, not essential, you may even have done a PhD. It’s always useful to evidence that you are able to strengthen your academic experience. You are likely pretty much e essentially going to have needed to have done some element of research or dissemination of your abilities, which highlights why you are gonna be a brilliant clinical psychologist. And what else? Relevant experience. So I got onto training in 2008 and I graduated in 2002 and it wasn't all pedal to the metal. I did do a little bit of backpacking around the world for six months and I saved up to do that.

So yeah, there was a fair amount of sitting in hammock and drinking lovely cocktails, but there was also a lot of hard work across a variety of different clinical populations where I was able to hone my craft. So that is a little bit about the root. Once you're on the doctorate in clinical psychology, you do that for three years. You have to pass a variety of clinical placements. You usually have between five to six, four to six clinical placements. And you'll do assignments during that time, and then you need to pass each clinical placement. And you also have assignments and a piece of unique research to do, which composes your thesis. It's a lot to balance. It's a lot to juggle. But if you were not aware of that, I hope that's useful, but if you found this helpful, please do consider leaving me a testimonial that I can use on socials or drop me something anonymously that's great.

Or on LinkedIn, you can write me a recommendation if we're not already connected on there. I think you might need to send me a connection request too to demonstrate that you think what I've got to say is useful and supportive. Like I said the podcast can be really useful especially the interviews episodes and the interview prep episodes. So 65 is Learn and Be Learn and Revise better. 64 is preparing for interview success. Optimally prepared for interviews is episode 10, so 10 64 and 65. There's also other replays that you can watch on my YouTube channel, Dr. Marianne Trent. And yeah, if you think you might find it helpful to come aboard to the Aspiring Psychologist membership, there is no minimum requirement for you to stay. You wanna go come for a month and see if it's a good fit for you.

That's absolutely okay too. There'll be links in my bio for how you can do that. And like I said, the Clinical Psychologist Collective and the Aspiring Psychologist Collective make excellent reads as well. Thank you so much for reading. I hope you found that useful. Thank you also for being part of my world and trusting you to bring you what you need to know when you need to know it. If you've got any questions or ideas for future episodes, please do get in touch. I will look forward to catching up with you for the next episode of the podcast, which is available to you from 6:00 AM on Mondays, by which time I hope my elbow will be a little bit more healed. Take care and thank you for being part of my world

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