Exploring the perceived preparedness of clinical and counselling psychology students for the newly acquired roles as intern psychologists.
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Date
2021
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Abstract
Background: The training of clinical and counselling psychologists in South Africa has
continuously received research attention as it is arguably rich in diversity and presents with the
nuances of contextual factors influencing the training and wellbeing of trainee psychologists.
South African psychology is inherently embedded in the politics of apartheid ideology and
colonial oppression, marginalisation, elitism, unequal power relations and social control
(Macleod & Howell, 2013. Consequently, the traditional training model has also been under
scrutiny to ascertain its efficacy, given the contextually diverse challenges clients present for
psychotherapy. The overall objective of the study is to identify the influential factors that
contribute to the trainee psychologists’ perceived preparedness for their newly acquired
professional roles.
Methodology: The study explored the perceived preparedness of clinical and counselling
trainee psychologists for their professional roles, using a qualitative research approach. The
qualitative approach allowed the researcher to uncover the underlying trainee psychologists’
subjective experiences of the master’s training programme and the perceived impact on their
professional competence. The researcher conducted five one-on-one in-depth interviews with
intern psychologists who were enrolled at the University of KwaZulu-Natal. The accumulative
data was categorised into codes using the stepwise thematic analysis method. Themes were
consolidated with the help of the ecological systems model, adopted as a methodological
framework, characterised by an integrated, holistic approach that is relevant when exploring
subjective experiences. The ecological systems theory gave insight to the exploration of
contextual factors that have an impact on students’ personal and professional development.
Findings: The emergent findings of the study indicate that most participants reportedly
experienced the professional training as being stressful, identifying concurrent academic,
clinical, and therapeutic demands deeply entrenched in the training process. Moreover, trainees
as illustrated in the findings, constantly put themselves under significant pressure to perform
well despite not sharing their challenges with other trainees in the programme. Over the years,
the increasing demands of the training have evidently become the fibre of the development of
psychologists. The interviewing process provided participants the opportunity to
retrospectively reflect on the nuances of their training experiences, which positively
contributed to building their emotional and intellectual insight pertaining the technical and soft
skills acquired in the first year of training.
Description
Masters Degree. University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban.