Psychology Careers Uncovered

Dr Sanjay Sunak BSc (Hons), MSc, PG Dip, PsychD

Clinical Neuropsychologist

Queen Mary’s Hospital, Roehampton, London

Overview

•My background and qualifying as a Clinical Psychologist

•What does a Clinical Neuropsychologist do?

•Challenges and rewards•What to do for experience

•Questions

My background and qualifying as a Clinical Psychologist

•Undergraduate degree & voluntary experiences

•Postgraduate degrees & salaried posts

•Myth busting...

Clinical Psychology Doctorate myth busting!

•It’s so competitive I’ll spend years applying and never getting an offer

•If I don’t have Psychology Assistant experience I won’t get offered an interview

• [Brunel’s Psychology courses confer Graduate Basis of Registration for the BPS]

What does a Clinical Neuropsychologist do?

•Extremely diverse and open to a variety of different approaches •e.g. working with teams & leadership,

1:1 work with patients, working with groups of patients, working with families

•Since Monday last week....

A snapshot of my working week• ‘Diagnostic Assessment Clinic’

• Family work

• Assessment and rehabilitation (1:1 patient work)

• Supervision & complex case discussion with my team

• Teaching the Trainee Clinical Psychologists at Surrey

[Different settings]

A little more on assessment and rehabilitation

•Assessment•Intelligence tests, memory,

concentration, visuospatial skills, executive skills (initiation, planning, organisation etc.)

•Rehabilitation•Compensatory strategies

What is wrong (and right) with this clock drawing?

Challenges & rewards

•Neuro rehab is a little bit like the film ‘Inception’

•Mixture of both complex assessment skills and intervention/therapy skills: individual patients, groups of patients, families, NHS teams etc.

•Leadership

What to do for experience

• Relevant experience would be working closely with people that a clinical psychologist may see

• This experience could be obtained in any setting

• Equal weight is given to clinically-relevant experience obtained whilst carrying out research

• Relevant experience may be paid or unpaid

What to do for experience•Google “Careers within the IAPT initiative”

•Specifically neuropsychology ▫PhD students in a relevant field who need an

assistant▫voluntary work in relevant UK charities (e.g.

Stroke Association, Headway) and care settings for people with brain injury

▫honorary assistant psychologist posts for research (psychometric assessment experience)

Thank you for listening!

Questions?