Provisional psychologists need adequate competencies to support trauma-impacted clients.
Up to three-quarters of the general population have experienced trauma in their lifetime (Mills et al., 2011). Traumatic experiences can lead to an individual experiencing social-emotional-behavioural symptoms such as anxiety, anger, depression, withdrawal, aggression and self-injurious behaviour. Psychologists are often on the frontline when it comes to providing targeted psychological support for individuals experiencing immediate or chronic distress for traumatic experiences. As such, psychologists must competently understand the complexities regarding the presentation and treatment of trauma-related disorders.
Psychologists must be trained to use best-practice trauma-informed assessment and interventions with clients who have been adversely impacted by trauma. Despite the apparent importance of trauma training, there is a lack of understanding about how psychologists in Australia are trained to support clients who have experienced trauma.
About the study
This research aimed to address the following research questions:
1. How many Masters of Psychology courses in Australia include content related to trauma in their coursework?
2. What type of skills and topics, in relation to trauma, are taught in the coursework of Masters of Psychology courses across Australia?
To explore these questions, this study investigated the extent that Masters of Psychology coursework in Australia provided trauma-related training to students in 2019. This was achieved by interrogating the contents of online unit handbooks that are published on training institutions’ publicly available websites. Descriptive statistics and content analysis were used to analyse and synthesise the collected data.
Findings
This study found that 25 Master of Psychology courses (out of 79 courses eligible for inclusion) explicitly mentioned trauma-related content in the online unit handbooks. Specifically, 30 unique unit handbooks were identified as specifying content related to trauma. Content analysis of these unit handbooks revealed that (1) trauma was most often reported as a disorder (e.g., post-traumatic stress disorder), and (2) trauma training focused on assessment, intervention and theory.
Conclusions
Notwithstanding the limitation of analysing the content of unit handbooks to capture what is taught to provisional psychologists, the authors found that trauma content is not prolifically displayed as a major area of study in postgraduate psychology coursework across Australia. Such training is important due to the high prevalence of trauma in the community and the difficulties experienced by clients (and psychologists) when working though issues related to client trauma.
The authors make strong recommendations for course leaders to reflect upon the extent that their students are developing skills to assess and treat clients impacted by trauma and, in turn, revise coursework content as needed to address potential training gaps. Placement and clinic supervisors should also be aware that provisional and early career psychologists may lack competencies in providing treatment to trauma-impacted clients.
https://doi.org/10.1080/13284207.2021.1913047