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Core Skills in Psychological Practice (PSYC90125)
Graduate courseworkPoints: 12.5On Campus (Parkville)
About this subject
- Overview
- Eligibility and requirements
- Assessment
- Dates and times
- Further information
- Timetable (login required)(opens in new window)
Contact information
Year Long
Principal Coordinator: Dr Chaille Breuer
breuer.c@unimelb.edu.au
Overview
| Availability | Year Long |
|---|---|
| Fees | Look up fees |
This subject considers a range of fundamental skills and issues pertinent to practising psychologists. Topics include counselling and interviewing techniques, history taking and diagnosis, conducting a mental state examination, developing a client formulation, as well as the importance of self-care. The subject will include opportunities for students to practise newly acquired skills through role-plays and simulated client interactions during the teaching sessions which are primarily full-day workshops.
Students will also complete the Ways of Knowing program. This interprofessional curriculum activity brings together students from a range of disciplines to engage with multiple knowledges and ways of knowing. This will be achieved through completion of four nested activities where students will have the opportunity to learn from, with and about students from other disciplines exploring Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander health and wellbeing, cultural safety and collaborative practice. The learning activities will require students to critically reflect upon their own knowledges of health, biases and assumptions and aims to develop essential behaviours, values and attitudes required for collaborative and cultural safety practice.
Intended learning outcomes
On completion of this subject, students should be able to:
Knowledge
On completion of this subject, students should be able to:
- Demonstrate basic counselling and interviewing techniques and understand their application in professional psychological practice;
- Demonstrate an understanding of the philosophical basis of, and techniques used in the diagnosis of psychopathology and personality disorder;
- Describe the processes and skills required to conduct a mental state examination;
- Demonstrate an appreciation of the importance of self care as a psychologist;
- Develop an understanding of 'collaborative practice' in interprofessional contexts
- Demonstrate an appreciation of the significance of cultural safety to patient outcomes;
- Identify relevant cultural and social determinants of Indigenous health
- Describe the importance of reflective practice and cultural and professional humility for quality and safe healthcare delivery
Skills
On completion of this subject, students should demonstrate competency in:
- Basic interviewing and counselling skills, particularly with respect to history taking and diagnosis of mental health difficulties;
- Conducting a mental state examination;
- Identifying their own self-care needs and strategies to address these.
Application of skills and knowledge
On completion of this subject, students should demonstrate competency in:
- Integrating patient history and mental state examination with information derived from multiple sources (including informants and standardised assessment) to determine a diagnosis of mental disorder.
- Ontological and epistemological ''knowing'' in healthcare and apply that in a clinical interprofessional context.
Generic skills
- Critical thinking and analysis
- Interpersonal communication skills
- Problem solving
- Finding, evaluating and using relevant information
- Teamwork and working with others
Last updated: 7 February 2024