in this video i'm going to talk about the difference between clinical psychology doctorates and counseling psychology doctorates the reason i'm making this video is because there's a lot of confusion around the differences and similarities between these two courses and the qualifications that they lead to at the end so if you've done your psychology undergrad that means you're eligible to apply for these courses now in the uk clinical psychology is free for anyone who is an eu citizen or a uk citizen you can actually go on to a clinical psychology course have that course paid for and you get paid as well you actually get a salary now if you're an international student you're going to have to pay a pretty hefty fee to do clinical psychology so a lot of people's decision-making process as to which qualification they actually do whether it be counseling psychology or clinical psychology does come down to the financing because the courses are very similar and i'll talk about the similarities and differences in a moment but clinical is incredibly competitive to get onto it so clinical psychology is far more competitive to get on to than counseling psychology because with clinical psychology you're only allowed to apply for three courses in the uk and because it's funded for a lot of people not everyone but all the uk and eu people they're going to get a free course of course a very expensive course that's paid for and they get a salary although there's going to be international students paying for the course because so many people get it for free it's high in demand it's so competitive it's really difficult to get onto those courses a lot of people do psychology undergrads a tremendous amount of people do those courses so the fight is pretty tough long and hard for people who want to do clinical psychology so my advice to people who want to be hcpc registered psychologist so essentially qualified psychologist who offers psychotherapy in the uk is going to be it's a numbers game and apply for both counseling psychology and also apply for clinical psychology as well the courses are tremendously similar and the qualification that you get at the end of the day is tremendously similar so regardless of which course you do you're going to be a hcpc registered psychologist now most jobs that are advertised for counseling psychologists or clinical psychologists in the uk by the nhs will accept applications from regardless of whether you're a counseling psychologist or your clinical psychologist you can apply so if the job is listed as clinical psychology job then because i'm a counseling psychologist i would still be eligible to apply for that job because the role is so similar the training's so similar but the key difference is that counseling psychology courses are always self-funded now the other difference between the two courses is the neuropsych element on some clinical psychology courses there is a bit of neuro psychology training but it's not really that extensive you would still kind of need to go on and get more experience in that area if you want to really go into the neurosex side of things further long down the line and there's always exceptions the cancer psychology course that i did which was at t side university actually did a little bit of neuropsych training and they offered a little bit more neuropsych training than some of the clinical psychology courses so even that thing about the neuropsych experience is not always a guarantee however in general you'll probably find a little bit more of the neuropsych side of things on clinical psychology courses so if you're particularly interested in neuropsych then it would be understandable that you would be a bit more interested in the clinical psychology course rather than counseling psychology however the modules are incredibly similar so on these courses you're going to learn about therapy you're going to learn a lot about cognitive behavioral therapy you're going to learn about psychodynamic therapy and you're going to get some experience and knowledge in other types of therapy and you're going to learn about research so predominantly whether you enlist on a clinical psychology course or counseling psychology course you're pretty much going to get the same hcpc psychologist training a psychologist qualification at the end of it and you're eligible to apply for the same jobs regardless of whether you're a clinical psychologist or a counseling psychologist now in private practice the difference between counseling psychologists and clinical psychologists is non-existent for example at my clinic private therapy clinic we have a mix of can sex psychologists and clinical psychologists and when we hire these people we kind of notice which they are but then we forget about it because they do the exact same job regardless of whether they're clinical psychologists or counseling psychologists the job they're they're doing and the clients they see is exactly the same the only differences is that each individual can decide what they go on to specialize in once they become qualified they can decide what courses they embark on is professional development so that's where you get control and freedom over your working life and you can decide in private practice what kind of areas you want to specialize in more so than others so my advice to people who are considering training as a psychologist and doing one of the doctorates is don't get too caught up in whether you're applying to clinical psychology or counseling psychology you just want to be a hcpc registered psychologist who offers therapy if that's the career that you're dreaming of therefore just apply to all the courses that you're eligible to apply to because it really is a numbers game and it's very competitive to get on to either of these courses but it's going to be a lot easier to get onto counseling psychology because that's always self-funded everyone has to pay for it now these courses are not cheap so we're looking at about i mean different for different universities but it's going to be about 10 000 pounds a year if you're a an eu or a uk citizen for the counseling psychology courses if you're a clinical psychology uh international student it's gonna the fees are gonna be even more it's incredibly expensive to study clinical psychology at the top universities in the uk if you're an international student and you don't get paid to do it if you're an international student whereas the eu and the uk people actually get a paid job where while they're while they're also doing this really valuable training um so it can be incredibly confusing for people about what to do in terms of uh once they've done the the psychology um undergrad and then they want to go on and they want to get onto in these doctorates what i would say is avoid doing any masters that don't lead to really good qualifications along the way with the exception of the babcp cbt course now the bab cbt course is either postgraduate diploma or elsa masters you've got an option of doing it as a postgraduate diploma or a master's and that takes about two years a year and a half or two years to do that course and and that's a lovely course to do if you can get onto that course however it does require a lot of experience and a lot of um psychotherapy experience before you're gonna get onto that course so you you might need some extra courses or extra experience that that you get before you go down that route um but in general what i find when i advise undergrads of their career roots people end up doing masters that they don't really need that don't really help them and don't really lead to them having a really solid accreditation so really if you have completed your psychology degree and if you want to be a psychologist just go for a course that is hcpc accredited and and then you will you will have a valid qualification in the uk as a psychologist if you get this qualification in the uk then you can transfer it over to other to work in other countries which means that your transcripts would just have to be looked at and then the course would be verified but a uk doctorate that leads to hcpc accreditation is a very good qualification now some people might have a special interest in forensic psychology or health psychology um and i would give slightly different advice to those people but the advice i would give to people who are interested in the health psychology route is that it's a kind of a limited qualification if you go down that route and if you actually just train in clinical psychology or counseling psychology you can specialize in the health related stuff and helping people with health-related related conditions anyway but it gives you it makes you more employable you've got more opportunities to work in a wider range of of difficulties in areas because health psychology jobs may not come up all of the time forensic psychology and of course sports psychology are very different um so that would be different advice i would give to people who are considering those courses but the advice i most commonly give to people in relation to counseling psychology and clinical psychology is just they are very similar courses and if it's your goal to get qualified as a psychologist sooner rather than later i would say just apply to all of the clinical psychology and all of the counseling psychologists that you're eligible to apply to and then once your offers come through then you can see what you have and then you can make decisions about whether it is really the course that you want to be going on to certainly the london courses are more expensive than courses in other parts of the country the course that i did at t-side university was amongst one of the most affordable when i did it and it also came with a bursary in the first year so that was really nice i was also studying in a part of the uk that was incredibly affordable to live so it was it was kind of uh beneficial to me i got offered a place at roehampton as well but i felt that actually it was better for me to study outside of london just because of the finances that were available to me at the time however a lot of people are already based in london and therefore they don't want to be moving out and for those people i would say look at courses that might be actually commutable from london if you're based in london also another thing to consider is that the clinical psychology course is actually more demanding in terms of lecture hours in general and this will vary from course to course but in general counseling psychology is two days lectures a week the rest of the days are on work placement and clinical psychology will often be a bit more demanding than that in terms of the actual lecture hours so you might want to email the universities and just find out about exactly what time what time and day the lectures are on what kind of commitment there is in terms of lectures because that can vary amongst course to course i'm going to talk about some of the modules that are being covered at clinical psychology courses and counseling psychology courses for people who are starting these courses this year so i'll mention two counseling psychology universities in the uk and i'll mention one clinical psychology course in the uk so this is so you can kind of see the similarities and differences of the modules being offered at different universities and this will kind of help you see the difference between counseling psychology and clinical psychology and also the similarities at roehampton university for people starting this year and then over the next three years they'll be studying modules such as professional practice and development person-centered and experiential theory inclusion ethics and social justice assessment and formulation and clinical presentations research psychological knowledge and models of therapy psychodynamic theory and practice personal development advanced competencies cbt theory and practice then at london metropolitan university for people starting this year who are going to be doing the course over the next three years or for part-time people it's over four years they'll be studying advanced research design and analysis for psychology counseling psychology practice and development professional and ethical issues psychological knowledge and models of therapy research project and critical thinking therapeutic and reflective skills working with difference in diversity advanced psychological theory and practice so now we've got the clinical psychology course at king's university london they'll be studying adult mental health including anxiety depression and psychosis psychology and psychiatric of childhood and adolescent neuropsychological theory and practice clinical psychology as applied to intellectual disability and neurodevelopment disorders mental health of older adults clinical health psychology forensic psychology psychological therapy with strong emphasis on cbt family therapy and mindful mindfulness-based therapies professional legal and ethical issues race equality and diversity and leadership so just by looking at these comparisons what i can see like what strikes me really is just the neuropsych difference between these courses in general these courses are covering things like cbt psychodynamic therapy lots of different theories lots of different therapies of course these modules have different names at different places because they can call these modules whatever rings a bell with them and what they whatever they feel describes it best and you could be learning that module at one university and learning very similar things another university in the module might be just called something different but in general there is a little bit more of an emphasis on neuropsych stuff on the clinical course compared to those two counseling psychology courses and there's a little bit of a focus a small bit more on more serious mental um mental illness such as a little bit on psychosis and and stuff like that so we could assume that clinical psychology courses lean a little bit more into the slightly more complex mental illness but also it all comes down to the experience that you decide to have after you graduate because once you graduate you can decide where do you want to apply for in terms of your jobs after you finish your doctorate do you want to lean into more neuroscience side of things do you want to lean into more complex mental health and definitely counseling psychologists can see very serious mental health we can work with psychosis we can work with schizophrenia and disorders like bipolar that would be considered more complex um personalities we might not necessarily receive a lot of that training and experience on our doctorate but we've got a lot of opportunity to get experience once we qualify and even the placements that people pick and try to get onto during their doctorate training can have a huge impact on what they end up going on to do once they qualify and for anyone who's a really strong interest in neuropsychology and you end up on the counseling psychology course but you really have a passion for neuropsychology you can go on to do further training and professional development in the future so that you can actually go on to really specialize in that area so rest assured if you've got a place on either a counseling psychology course or a clinical psychology course you're doing very well you've clearly worked hard to get there because it's very competitive your chances of getting a place on a council psycho psychology course statistically are far greater than getting a course on on clinical psychology in the uk but if you're really passionate about becoming a psychologist just really go for it in terms of getting onto one of these hcpc accredited courses get the right training and exp get the right um work experience beforehand get a little bit of client experience in whatever capacity you can even if it's just support work and then you will be in a really good position to be a strong candidate when you're applying for these kind of courses so if you've got any questions from this video just write a comment below and i'd be more than happy to offer some extra advice