psychology in ireland

psizzy

Hi there!
I’ve been reading things here, trying to find some answers to my questions, but I think it just made me more confused
I think I’m going to write a lot so just bear with me here, and thanks ahead for helping me. I'll put the questions in bold for the ones that don't want to read everything!

I’m living in Portugal and have been taking a psychology degree. In the meanwhile, most colleges here adapted the Bologna Process changes. So instead of finishing my H Dip in Clinical Psychology in January, I’ll be finishing my masters. In Portugal, if there were jobs in psychology, I’d be ready to work as a clinical psychologist. I read something about needing a PhD to work in Ireland as a clinical psyc, is this true? Cause I’ve seen adds for Ireland, and sometimes they only ask for a masters. Oh and as Ireland been "afected" by the Bologna Process at all? Just curious here.

So I’ve been reading things about the colleges and programmes there and also about accreditation of foreign degrees, but sometimes the information in different places doesn’t match. As for the accreditation, does anybody know if it’s difficult to get? I read something somewhere about a minimum average for the accreditation, but I’m not sure what my average is, as I don’t know how to convert it to that 1:1, 2:1 thing. Don’t really know what it means either Can someone help?

Here, Clinical Psychology goes for everything except educ and organizational. I’ve noticed health psychology in ireland is a different masters, and counselling is a whole new other degree. For instance, I had an 8 months internship on a healthcare center, where I practiced as a clinical and health psychologist. I worked with kids aged 6 to elders, from night terrors to early Alzheimer’s, through psychotic cases, depressions, and some complicated cases involving child physical and sexual abuse (also involving death threats to the teams involved, not amusing really!):(
In Portugal mostly every case goes through the Healthcare centers, where the GP’s are.

Moving on, when I searched for job adds online, in Ireland, the ones that usually don’t require a lot of years of experience are related to intellectual disabilities, and kids. I prefer not to work with kids because it’s a big stressor for me. So I’m curious as to if it’s difficult to find a job that’s not exclusively with kids? Or with intellectual disabilities?
Ah and still about the PhD, I read something about having to go to the UK for it; is that easy to do? Cause I’m having a real trouble finding a job here so I can save enough money to go to Ireland. Would it be easy then to go to the UK for the PhD?

I think that's all for now. I apologise for any mistakes i might have missed.
Hope someone can help me, assuming no one falls asleep reading this!

The Black Oil

Not every clinical psychologist based here has a PhD, however I think most if not all of the training programmes are at doctorate level - D Clin Psych, and of course anything you do has to be properly accredited if you want to be registered properly.

I'm not sure your grade will affect your accreditation as such, it might be more likely to affect prospects of moving forward in the area as a whole. You might want to ask the PSI, though.

On TCD's clinical doctorate you do both adult and child placements, however I don't know what the employment prospects are in terms of working with different groups. I suppose it will depend on the catchment area and so on.

Have a look here: http://www.psihq.ie/DOCUMENTS/Clinical-Kevin.ppt

psizzy

Thank you so much for answering!
I guess i'll check with PSI about the accreditation and the scores when i get all the papers ready.

One more thing, i hope someone can help me. Are there enough psychologists who speak isl?
I started a course here in sign language, but since i'm not staying there was no point in continuing. So i'm thinking on starting an isl course when i get to ireland,and am curious to know if i'll be given the chance to use it when working, or if there were enough psychologists who do it already...

Thank you, again, for answering!

The Black Oil

Good question but I'm not sure to be honest. Might be worth asking here http://www.deafhear.ie/