Clinical Associate in Psychology (CAP)
Clinical associates in psychology (CAPs) provide psychological interventions under the supervision of a fully qualified practitioner psychologist. You’ll work with a specific population, supporting people who have longstanding and complex difficulties and use psychological theory and evidence to find the best interventions to meet their needs. You will also be involved in service evaluation or research.
You'll work alongside a range of psychological professionals and other disciplines to provide people with access to psychologically informed mental health and wellbeing services.
By creating a psychological formulation - a simplified 'map' of how different aspects of a service user's problem fit together and what could be keeping it going - you will develop a picture of the service user's difficulties. Based on this, you will provide effective and evidence-based psychological interventions that are appropriate to their needs, in the context in which they are experiencing distress.
You will conduct research and use tools to evaluate psychological interventions and improve the quality of clinical practice. You will also provide support, guidance and training to others in order to inform psychological interventions across a range of service settings.
You will work autonomously with support and under the supervision of a psychologist. Supervision will support you to engage in self-reflection, seek and respond to feedback, and develop your professional knowledge and skills.
As a clinical associate in psychology you will work with specific populations. For example, you might work in children and young people’s services or adult mental health services, depending on the area you have trained in.
You will likely work in a multi-disciplinary team, alongside a variety of professionals from different backgrounds, such as clinical/counselling psychologists, psychological therapists, community mental health nurses, wellbeing practitioners, social workers, occupational therapists, psychiatrists, support workers, employment specialists and peer support workers.
You are likely to work in one or several of the following:
- community mental health teams
- hospitals or inpatient settings
- secure or medium secure mental health settings
- specialist mental health services
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