Character and Fitness Requirements for Professional Psychologists: Training Directors' Perspectives.

How trainees develop an initial theory of practice: A process model of tentative identifications

“…If theories of practice have deep personal roots, we might consider them when assessing applicants to graduate programs. Evidence of trainee character and values is frequently sought in letters of reference, a notoriously inflated source of information (Johnson & Campbell, ). We need to understand which values support orientation development and develop effective methods of assessing them.…”

“MySpace” or Yours? The Ethical Dilemma of Graduate Students' Personal Lives on the Internet

“…Virtue ethics emphasizes character and self-reflection, and suggests that the kind of person someone is guides how the person thinks in the professional as well as in the personal realm. Some have suggested that training programs should pay more attention to issues of character and fitness for duty (e.g., Johnson & Campbell, 2004;Pipes et al, 2005), with screening and discipline in terms of integrity, prudence, caring, personality adjustment, psychological health, and use of substances. Thus, the ethical use of students' personal information is further complicated for programs who embrace the virtue ethics approach, who may feel more pressure to select applicants and hold current students responsible for their moral character and behaviors.…”

Psychological Woundedness and its Evaluation in Applications for Clinical Psychology Training

“…Of course, the term impairment only captures the negative or dysfunctional aspect of woundedness, which typically plays out in the form of therapist ‘blind spots’, counterresistance, harmful countertransference enactments, boundary violations, unethical conduct and unconscious gratification of therapist needs at patients' expense. This is the reason for selection committees' careful screening of applicants' psychological fitness and the justification for excluding applicants with evidence of serious psychological disturbance (Johnson & Campbell, ; Chippindall and Watts, ). In psychodynamically oriented programmes and parts of the world where psychologists traditionally practise intensive psychotherapy, it also provides a rationale for the recommendation or requirement that trainee psychologists undergo their own personal psychotherapy as part of their professional training (Guy & Liaboe, ; G. Ivey and C. Waldeck, unpublished manuscript; Murphy, ), as initiation into clinical work is bound to catalyse trainee woundedness.…”

“…Internationally, the selection criteria for post‐graduate clinical psychology training tend to be strict, with an emphasis on the overall suitability of applicants for this healing profession (Chippindall & Watts, ; Johnson & Campbell, ; Nevid & Gildea, ; Roth & Leiper, ). As ‘gatekeepers’ to the profession, selectors are well aware of their ethical responsibility to the public and the need to ensure that those selected are psychologically fit and well suited to the emotionally demanding work of engaging with others' psychic pain.…”