Principle
These courses include assessment courses, intervention courses, and the professional ethics course (see full list below). Access is open to clinical courses that are primarily theoretical and/or empirical and that do not directly focus on the development of skills in the delivery of psychological services.
Rationale
The CPA accredited doctoral training program in clinical psychology is designed to prepare students to practice clinical psychology. Courses that are directly related to the provision of psychological services and to the practice of clinical psychology are therefore restricted to students in the doctoral clinical psychology program. The purpose of this restriction is to avoid the possibility of students practicing skills for which they are not fully qualified. In particular, the School of Psychology has a responsibility not to enable non-clinical students to convey the impression that they have received formal education in an accredited clinical program which would justify future activities which fall within Psychology's legislatively defined scope of practice, including, but not limited to the act of diagnosis.
Possible exceptions
- Persons with certificate of registration authorizing supervised practice as a psychologist.
- Those registered in other clinical psychology programs accredited by the Canadian Psychological Association (or in the process of being reviewed for accreditation by the Canadian Psychological Association).
- Those students in the experimental psychology program at the University of Ottawa whose research requires administration of assessment tools.
Process for requesting an exception
Students who are not registered in the doctoral clinical-program but who are persons with certificate of registration authorizing supervised practice, registered in other applied psychology graduate programs, or students in the experimental psychology program of the University of Ottawa may submit a letter to the Clinical Program Committee via the Director of the Clinical Program explaining the purpose for which they wish to take a restricted course and demonstrating that they have completed prerequisite courses.