Clinical Psychology Teaching: Testimonials
An interview with former student Dr Poppy Brown (Stanford)
Why did you decide to do the course?I was completing a DPhil in Psychiatry within Daniel Freeman’s team and learning a lot from the clinical psychologists around me. I loved the research I was doing on treatment development for paranoia and was also able to be a co-therapist on many of the treatment trials the team were running. I really valued the work with patients and was also aware that to continue an academic career in researching psychological therapies I would need to be fully trained as a clinician myself, so doing the DClinPsych was an obvious next step for me. I chose to do the Oxford DClin course because a lot of emphasis is placed on evidence-based practice, and it has a strong research component which fitted well with my own experience and preferences.
The course also thinks quite carefully about how to assess trainees, and I liked that each assessment is designed to be something that provides useful learning and doesn’t take up hours and hours of time. For instance, rather than having exams that you cram for and then forget all the content of, it has some one-day tasks of e.g. reviewing a research paper or writing on a particular topic, and where the requirements for passing reflect the fact that it was just a one day piece of work and therefore not a perfect piece of writing.
Another pretty big factor though was just the location! I was already living in Oxford and had a big social network there and liked that the small city feel meant we would be likely to be able to spend time together as a cohort which can be harder in more spread out places.
Which aspects of the course did you find most valuable or interesting? How has it informed what you do now? How has this course influenced your career path or professional development? I was fortunate to come from a role and field (psychosis research) that I really enjoyed and knew I would probably want to continue in. I liked that I was able to spend my specialist placement in the Oxford Early Intervention in Psychosis Service as that gained me valuable clinical experience in my field of interest. I liked that we were also encouraged to build our own research projects rather than choosing from a pre-designated list. While it can feel challenging it also gives you more control over what you do and the experience of completing a project from inception to completion. I’m now doing a post-doc in a CBT for psychosis team at Stanford, California. The licensing to be a Clinical Psychologist in the US doesn’t transfer, but my PI (who also trained in the UK) believes the UK training courses to be some of the best in the world and therefore was very willing to hire me despite me not having a local license, and I’m able to use a huge amount of what I learnt clinically and more broadly during training.
How did the course balance theoretical knowledge with practical applications? DClin Psy courses typically follow a learn as you go format. You have a brief initial full-time teaching block but begin working on placements quickly, which means you are practically applying what you are learning in teaching as you go. This has benefits but also challenges, and sometimes the teaching for a topic came after you had already needed to do it. This is just the reality of having large cohorts of trainees all on different placements. The course places a big emphasis on trainee feedback to try and iron out these difficulties. There is a lot of teaching and you are also on placement three days a week, which means that research time gets a little squeezed, something which the course tries to better balance year on year.
While staff members have a huge amount of responsibility and work making them extremely busy, the Oxford course has a far better staff:student ratio than most courses meaning you’re more likely to get time from staff. This is something that will be increasing further as the course becomes more integrated within the Department of Experimental Psychology.
- Dr Poppy Brown
How accessible and supportive were the faculty members throughout your studies? I was pleasantly surprised at the start of the course by how much emphasis they placed on ensuring you have various avenues of support and contact with staff members. You have a personal tutor external to the course, a course tutor who is your main line manager, two year group tutors, then your research supervisors also. While staff members have a huge amount of responsibility and work making them extremely busy, the Oxford course has a far better staff:student ratio than most courses meaning you’re more likely to get time from staff. This is something that will be increasing further as the course becomes more integrated within the Department of Experimental Psychology.
What specific opportunities (internships, networking, research) did the course provide? You are encouraged to design your own research projects from scratch and have the freedom to reach out to external researchers as you see fit (something which the course would also support you with if needed). The research and placement fairs also give you some amount of opportunity to speak to clinicians and researchers across the local counties. While you are not able to choose your specialist placement outright, there is quite a lengthy process of discussing your training needs and career aspirations that goes into ranking placements before you are allocated.
How would you describe the community of students and the collaborative environment? Things may have changed a little bit from when I trained (due to trainees having placement bases for the full three years), but the nature of Oxford as a small city, as well as the course itself being smaller in training numbers than many others, means that socialising and collaborating was quite easy for our cohort. We all got to know each other pretty well and the environment was very supportive. They aim to make most teaching in person which also helps with this.
What resources or support services were most helpful during your studies? I was lucky enough to have an existing support network in Oxford, both professionally and personally, which made navigating any challenges of the course a lot easier. The course do make a lot of effort, however, setting you up with various avenues of support and contact as mentioned earlier. I know that several trainees also made use of the University Counselling Service and had positive experiences, and being connected to the University is also great for accessing other things like libraries and software.
Other Teaching in the Department
RESEARCH GROUPS IN THIS THEME
