Massey Documents by Type

Permanent URI for this communityhttps://mro.massey.ac.nz/handle/10179/294

Browse

Subject: search.filters.subject.Clinical psychologists

Search Results

Now showing 1 - 6 of 6
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    Service user views of clinical psychologist competence : a thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of requirements for the degree of Doctor of Clinical Psychology at Massey University, Albany, Aotearoa New Zealand
    (Massey University, 2023) Stevenson, Alice
    People who engage with mental health services are often not included when developing professional practice guidelines, including clinical psychology core competencies. There is a lack of research regarding how service users view psychologist competence, and service users have never been explicitly involved in generating related competencies. This leads to a limited understanding of whether existing conceptualisations of competence and competencies align with service user views. I aimed to inform current theoretical and practical understandings of competence and competencies by asking what service users identify as competent practice for clinical psychologists (CPs) and how service user views of clinical psychology (CP) competence aligned or contrasted with existing aspects of the New Zealand Psychologist’s Board (NZPB) core competencies. I adopted a social constructionist, user-led orientation based on co-production principles. This informed a mixed methods survey (n = 73) and individual interviews (n = 12) that asked A-NZ adults who had seen CPs for mental health support how they viewed CP competence. Analyses included descriptive statistics for quantitative data, content analysis for the qualitative survey data, and thematic analysis for the qualitative interview data. The analyses were then compared with the existing core competencies. The findings included five main areas that participants highlighted as important for CP competence: Interpersonal Skills and Relational Presence; Responsive Contact; Cultural Responsivity; Mental Health-Related Stigma, Discrimination, Exclusion, and Power (MHSDEP); and Safe Processes and Profession. A major aspect of service user views that contrasted with the NZPB competencies was the area of MHSDEP, especially in reference to power. Service user views of competence inform contemporary conceptualisations of competence and provide information about what is needed to make the current competencies more responsive and fit for purpose. I recommend that service user views be incorporated into the current competencies. It is clear from this study that the views of people with lived experience of mental distress are crucial for informing professional practice processes and guidelines for psychologists and mental health services more widely.
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    How psychologists view and engage with competence in their practice : a thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in Psychology at Massey University, Albany, New Zealand
    (Massey University, 2018) Taylor, Kristin
    The purpose of this study was to gain insight into how psychologists view and engage with competence and identify the factors that they determine as supporting or inhibiting competent practice. To date, few studies have examined the elements psychologists identify as shaping the development of their professional competence. It is hoped by doing so, strategies can be implemented that develop, maintain, and enhance competence and encourage active participation in the Continuing Competence Programme (CCP). Having an agreed definition of the qualities required to be competent is essential to evaluate, improve, and ensure quality assurance in psychological practice. Ten psychologists from the clinical and industrial organisational scopes participated. Semi-structured interviews were used; questions were designed to act as prompts and to ensure no relevant themes were overlooked. The interviews were recorded then transcribed and analysed using thematic analysis. Results indicated that while the participants understood the meaning of competent practice, how they relate that to their practice and how this influences their participation in the CCP varies. The participants discussed the value of, and the challenges associated with, achieving, demonstrating, and measuring competence and the consequences this has on their practice, their clients and themselves. They also identified factors that encourage, develop, and maintain competence and those factors that are threats to competence. It is essential to understand how an individual perceives competence as this will determine how they view and engage with competence in their practice. Understanding this will assist with competency development, maintenance, measurement and demonstration across the professional lifespan.
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    The expected course of change for clients undertaking cognitive behavioural therapy as predicted by experienced and novice clinicians : a thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Clinical Psychology, Massey University, Palmerston North, New Zealand
    (Massey University, 2015) Fletcher, Amber
    Change, in the direction of improvement, is one of the main outcomes sought when treating mental health issues such as depression and anxiety. Historically, the focus of research has centred on change following the end of therapy, with recent discussions indicating that to promote better practice, understanding how the individual client changes, session-by-session, over the course of therapy is paramount. By incorporating a measure of progress at each session, it is proposed that clinicians will improve their ability to determine what reflects progress for clients, when intervention is required, and which aspects of therapy must be prioritised. Furthermore, the scientist-practitioner gap, where deficiencies in how practice influences research and how research influences practise have been identified and may be managed by actively collecting data about client progress. Practicing clinicians can then utilise research methods to both understand their own practice as well as provide insight into their practice that can influence further investigations. Using the primary therapy modality used to train New Zealand clinical psychologists, cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT), the present study aimed to provide an insight into what pattern of change was expected by both experienced and trainee clinicians when considering a client with depression and a client with anxiety undertaking a 12 session protocol of CBT, and how this compared to the current research literature. In addition, this study aimed to identify the pattern of change that was expected to occur for each client when considering overall symptoms, mood, and behavioural change. This was done by inviting experienced and trainee clinicians to complete an online task/questionnaire where participants were encouraged to plot session-by-session scores on three separate measures pertaining to each type of change using a specially designed graph. Despite the limitations of using hypothetical cases, findings showed that there were no significant differences in predictions made by experienced or trainee clinicians, with clinicians overall predicting a decelerating curvilinear progression of change. When explored further, results indicated that clinician predictions differed from the research literature in a number of ways. Whether or not this can be attributed to lack of awareness of the research literature, or is reflective of the true nature of clinical practice, still requires further exploration.
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    A hermeneutic phenomenological analysis of clinical psychologists' understandings of youth suicide : a thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in Psychology at Massey University
    (Massey University, 2005) Brown, Hannah
    New Zealand has one of the highest youth suicide rates in the developed world. There are many ambiguities around the risk factors and life events preceding a suicide attempt or completion, despite the vast amount of research done in this area. Clinical psychologists have the ability to add a wealth of knowledge on this topic, and surprisingly there has been little research done with this group. I wanted to find out directly from clinical psychologists about their experiences of working with youth who have attempted or completed suicide. I also wanted the opportunity to explore, from a clinical psychologists' perspective, the questions surrounding prevention and treatment programme efficacy. These topics and ideas are considered to be complex and controversial. Interpretive phenomenological analysis was used to investigate detailed reports of youth suicide from eight participants. Three master themes emerged from the analysis, those being "Client Actions", "Social and Cultural World" and "Psychological Person", as the central features of the phenomenology of suicide. Suicide is often explained in statistical terms, and an extensive amount of research has found many risk factors pertaining to youth suicide. However, the present study found that statistics cannot fully grasp the phenomenon of suicide, and participants were unable to meaningfully relate to suicide in this way. Findings in this study also suggest that one of the biggest gaps in the research is around the psychosocial aspects of youth suicide, particularly the sociocultural specificities of New Zealand youth. More training and research around these areas is recommended, along with inclusion of family in the treatment of youth suicide and mental illness.
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    Why am I here, and what is here anyway? : a social constructionist window into clinical psychology : a thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in Psychology at Massey University
    (Massey University, 2001) Adam, Dean
    Understandings of why people enter into careers as clinical psychologists are underdeveloped. This thesis uses a social construction perspective to explore the question of how clinical psychology students explain their career choice, and in particular how expectations and understandings of a career in clinical psychology are constructed as influencing such a decision. Interview transcripts from six clinical psychology students were analysed using a combined methodology of Heideggerian hermeneutics and discourse analysis of a thematic nature. The themes developed outline how the participants constructed clinical psychology, the process of choosing such a career, related professions, what it meant to 'be' a clinical psychologist, and other peoples' perceptions of clinical psychology. The conclusion of these findings suggest the need for multidisciplinary awareness in the training of clinical psychologists, the need for an increased focus on long term career satisfaction and goal achievement, and attention to the education of the public about the role and utility of clinical psychology.
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    Clinical psychologists' opinions about and uses of tests, assessment, and clinical intervention applications : a thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in Psychology at Massey University
    (Massey University, 1997) Patchett-Anderson, Lorraine Shirley
    A replication of two North American studies done in 1995, on the contemporary practice of psychological assessment and clinical intervention training, was conducted with New Zealand clinical psychologists currently registered and practising. One hundred and thirty seven subjects, of whom one third were in private practice, were asked their opinions about clinical assessment and their use of instruments. They were also asked about their professional experience with common, mostly empirically-validated, clinical interventions. It was found that over half of assessment-active clinical psychologists used six procedures, and a third or more used another eight. The clinical interview was top (and used by 87%), and the first five procedures were used most across nine work settings also. The respondents used assessment to answer specific questions, and recommended that clinical students learn about assessment procedures in order to incorporate the results into therapy and thereby facilitate the therapeutic process. Thirty-seven percent of their clients received objective testing procedures and 3% received projective testing. Half or more of the respondents used, and recommended that students learn to administer, the Wechsler Scales, the Beck Depression Inventory, and the State-Trait Anxiety Scale. The most used projective method was Sentence Completion (by 33%) but only 12% recommended that students should learn to use it, and whilst a quarter of clinical psychologists used and recommended that the TAT be learned, another quarter believed that students need not be competent in projective testing methods at all. Over half the clinical psychologists identified themselves as practising from a cognitive-behavioural orientation and this was reflected in their endorsement of cognitive, behavioural, or cognitive-behavioural empirically-validated clinical interventions. Eighteen of the most used 20 treatments were so described, the remaining two being the psychodynamic therapies which were ranked at positions 10 and 19, brief and longterm respectively. The most taught, supervised and utilised empirically-validated treatments were therapies for anxiety, depression, and chronic pain, and skills training for marital partners and for parents of children with oppositional behaviour. The single most used intervention, by 74%, was Applied Relaxation for Panic Disorder. The results of the study suggest that New Zealand clinical psychologists have developed a methodology of assessment originally patterned on North American practices but have evolved pragmatically in a distinctly cognitive-behavioural direction whilst still valuing the importance of traditional assessment instruments such as the MMPI and the Bender-Gestalt. Likewise their clinical intervention preferences tend to be cognitive-behavioural whilst still retaining the psychodynamic and psychoeducational approaches and embracing the "nineties" narrative evolution as well. The lack of success in obtaining information about the training content of programmes and internship requirements for clinical students should be remedied, in order to inform the profession, and research is also needed into yet-to-be-validated clinical interventions such as narrative therapy.