The purpose of this paper is to distill knowledge gained from the impact of COVID-19 on psychology clinical training and education at the graduate level. We explore our experiences as counselling psychology doctoral students who were completing practica when the pandemic occurred, and mental health services were adapting to rapidly changing circumstances. We employed a polyethnographic qualitative research design, informed by a developmental lens, to identify ourselves as the site of research and participate in a polyvocal and reflexive conversation. Subsequently, using thematic analysis to analyze our conversation, we traced how our growth was influenced during this unprecedented disruption in clinical training. Our conversation yielded seven themes and a related emerging conceptual representation that has implications for graduate training and education, with relevance to crisis situations. We position structured and ongoing relational support as a core process that helped us address both losses and disappointments while continuing to provide competent care to others.
Public Significance StatementThis study highlights the impact of COVID-19 on doctoral student clinical training and education. The results suggest the importance of reflexivity, flexibility of practice, supervision, peer relationships, contingency planning, and the need for telehealth training to be incorporated into doctoral clinical practica, supervision, and education.
This article summarizes and elaborates upon the themes discussed by members of the “Future of Counselling Psychology Education and Training in Canada” working group at the 2018 Canadian Counselling Psychology Conference (2018 CCPC) by 19 participants in attendance. Complexities in program requirements, external and internal program regulations, research competency and advancement, and cultural/social justice responsiveness and internationalization are explicated and analyzed. The current state of counselling psychology education and training is highly intricate and nuanced, while many strengths and opportunities for growth exist despite some long-standing tensions. It is hoped that this article not only will help outline and contextualize the current status and challenges facing the future of counselling psychology education and training in Canada but also will recruit others in helping to improve Canadian counselling psychology education and training. Advocating for what is needed to achieve this is consistent with the theme of the 2018 CCPC. Continued dialogue, program evaluation, theorizing, and research are needed on the nature and dynamics of Canadian counselling psychology education and training.
The voices of nearly 40 scholars, activists, and practitioners are brought together in Critical Inquiries for Social Justice in Mental Health. Their diverse contributions are united around a fundamental goal of deconstructing mental health systems to reveal how they produce and sustain social injustices. This review is structured around the three central organizing principles that Morrow and Malcoe weave throughout the book: (a) challenging dominant epistemologies, (b) emphasizing individuals’ resistance to social injustices, and (c) reimagining mental health systems. We offer our reflections about the book’s utility from the perspectives of a professor and a graduate student.
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