A longitudinal study of the psychological adaptation of trainee clinical psychologists

Although research has examined the psychological adaptation of practising c linical psychologists, little research has examined adaptation early in psy chologists' careers, particularly during training. Clinical psychology trai ning is a professionally highly formative period, which makes it an importa nt time to assess adaptation and intervene appropriately. The current study sought to profile the psychological adaptation of trainee clinical psychol ogists across training courses in the UK throughout the three years of clin ical training. A sample of 167 trainee clinical psychologists who had parti cipated in an earlier national study (Kuyken, et al., 1998) were followed u p one year later. Taken as whole, the study suggested that the population o f trainees reported psychological adaptation in the normal range for employ ed adults, suggesting considerable resiliency in this population. However, over the three years of clinical psychology training, trainees reported sig nificant increases in work adjustment problems, depression and interpersona l conflict with the significant change being between year one and two of tr aining. Consistent with earlier work (Kuyken et al., 1998), when sub-groups of trainees were considered on a multi-dimensional profile of adaptation, a significant proportion of trainees reported difficulties on one or more d imensions, which were enduring over time. Copyright (C) 2000 John Wiley & S ons, Ltd.