Daiches, Anna

Smith, Ian

Lancaster E-Prints

For a profession that claims to be based upon a philosophy of respect for individual differences (DCP, 2010), clinical psychology seems surprisingly poor at encompassing and dealing with difference and diversity. This reflected not only in continued difficulties in recruiting a diverse workforce to the profession (Turpin & Coleman, 2010), but also in frequently employed assumptions that  diversity  is something ‘other’ from ‘us’  practitioners (see Daiches & Golding (2005) for  a  brief  discussion, and Adetimole, Afuape & Vara (2005) for a first-hand account).   Perhaps even the term ‘diversity’ should perhaps be treated with suspicion. Patel (2010) argues that “diversity has become a ‘catch all’ phrase used in clinical psychology to privilege certain understandings...and minimising the more unpalatable task of naming and addressing racism and its impact on wellbeing”.  Whilst this may certainly be true in many situations, we believe that there is value in considering the common issues relating to different kinds of diversity, provided this is done with a clear recognition of the role of power in relation to such differences. In the same way that the cultural empathy model (see Gurpinar Morgan, this issue) is aimed at promoting more generic skills in working with people from different cultures, may not promoting the recognition and understanding the impact of discrimination in our society relating to race, culture, gender, sexual orientation, social class and other differences help practitioners develop more generic skills in dealing with difference?   There is little doubt that  professional training programmes in clinical psychology  have struggled  in finding ways to address diversity issues in the curriculum. The approach at Lancaster, for example, has oscillated over the years. Once upon a time the curriculum once included dedicated ‘diversity teaching’, predominantly conducted by people who identified themselves as being from ‘diverse’ (i.e. non-white heterosexual middle class) groups. This approach came to be viewed as tokenistic, and so specific teaching on ‘diversity’ was abolished and instead all teachers were asked to account for how they addressed issues of diversity in their teaching.  More recently this approach has in turn been recognised as ineffective, primarily because (as is identified in a number of the contributions in this special issue) many qualified clinical psychologists lack confidence and skills themselves in addressing issues of diversity. Our current position is one of exploring ways to take positive action to help and encourage all teachers for the programme to consider diversity as a core element of the teaching, no matter the topic. However, at the same time we are experimenting with ways of delivering dedicated teaching relating to diversity issues in the broadest sense.  The papers in this issue are one of the fruits of this endeavour – each is based upon a  presentation  by a trainee at a half day ‘mini conference’  we held last autumn, and is based upon a piece of academic coursework.   In this special issue, we aim to look in a very practical sense of what should and could be done in training clinical psychologists to improve practitioners’ awareness and skills in asking about and dealing with diversity of all kinds. We are strongly of the view that an essential starting point to developing skills in this area is an awareness of the diversity within ourselves and our peers, as opposed to identifying diversity is something ‘other’ or ‘out there’. Our aim in presenting  these papers is to promote both personal reflection in readers, and to  put forward  for discussion some thoughts about how  diversity and difference can be meaningfully addressed within clinical psychology training.    

Diversity and clinical psychology training

https://eprints.lancs.ac.uk/id/eprint/56482/1/guest_editoria_lancs.pdf

Diversity and clinical psychology training

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