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By David Murphy

Clinical psychologists help a huge range of people, of all ages, with an increasing number of mental health problems. Here are my top tips for getting into clinical psychology training.

(1)   Firstly, and probably most importantly, when you are at University, do your best consistently in your Psychology degree. Relevant experience can always be gained later down the line, but you only have a limited time to work on your degree and then your marks stay with you. Your degree transcript containing your marks from every module is used in selection.

(2)   Once your degree is in the bag then you need to get relevant experience. Not just to put on your application form but to make sure that working in this field is really what you want to do. Getting a paid assistant psychologist posts is very competitive; in fact nowadays it is actually more competitive than getting onto a doctoral training course. If you can’t get a traditional assistant psychologist post, there is a wide range of other types of relevant clinical experience; nursing assistant posts and/or some voluntary work are also a useful first step on the ladder.

(3)   When you do come to filling in your application form, try and communicate something about yourself, what you have learned, and what skills you have developed through your clinical experience and also in your other activities. Think of ways to set yourself apart from other applicants.

(4)    Choose your referees wisely and support them. It’s true that you can’t write the references but you can choose who you ask and help your referee by providing them with information about what the courses are looking for, particularly if they are not used to writing forms for clinical psychology. It’s such a shame when you see a great form accompanied by a clinical reference from someone who has only recently met the applicant or who can’t really comment on their clinical work, or an academic reference from someone who appears to have forgotten all about the applicant. If this information is lacking then it makes it very difficult for a course to know whether or not you meet the selection criteria.

(5)    Reflect and review. I’ve heard a lot of people say they were told not to even think about applying for Clinical Psychology training because of how competitive it is. Nevertheless, each year several hundred applicants do get places, so it is certainly possible. You may well not get a place on your first attempt but don’t let that put you off. However, you also need to be realistic and reflect on your progress. It’s true that you generally need to have 1-2 years of relevant experience to maximize your chances but if, after a number of attempts you find you still haven’t been successful, it is probably time to rethink. There are plenty of other ways in which you can apply your psychology degree within healthcare and also within many other fields.

Whatever way it turns out I wish you all the best!

David Murphy is the Joint Course Director of the University of Oxford Clinical Psychology Doctoral Training Programme, and co-editor of What is Clinical Psychology? He trained as a clinical psychologist at the Institute of Psychiatry in London and worked for over 20 years as a full-time clinical psychologist in acute hospital settings within the National Health Service before taking up his current position.

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Craig Robertson is an Assistant Professor of Communication Studies at Northeastern University.  His new book, The Passport in America: The History of A Document, examines how “proof of identity” became so crucial in America.  Through addressing questions of identification and surveillance, the history of the passport is revealed.  In the excerpt below we learn about photographs on passports.

On 21 December 1914, Secretary of State William Jennings Bryan issued an order requiring two unmounted photographs no larger than three inches by three inches to be submitted with passport applications – one attached to the application, the second to be put on the passport.  Citizens who had been issued passports without photographs were required to have a photograph added.  Photographs were introduced to make the passport a more accurate identification document in a time of war.  The use of the passport in the name of national security also brought with it an increased concern to make the document more secure.  Less than a month after adding photographs to passports, the State Department acknowledged the need to more effectively ensure that the correct photograph was connected to the correct document.  When applications were submitted to local courthouses, clerks were now requested to affix photographs to the application with a seal to avoid subsequent substitution of the photograph prior to the issuance of a passport.  In Washington and at embassies around the world, officials stamped their seal of their office over the top left corner of the photograph when they attached it to the passport instead of the initial practice of simply pasting it to the document.  In addition to being an attempt to secure the passport, the legend made explicit the purpose of the photograph and the authority the legitimized the identification process.  The legend stated: “This is to certify that the photograph attached hereto is a likeness of the person to whom this passport is issued.  In witness whereof the seal of the Department of State is impressed upon the photograph.”  In 1928, as part of continuing attempts to make the passport a more secure document, the State Department began to use a machine that perforated a legend across the lower part of the photograph after it was attached to a passport.  This made it more difficult for someone to cleanly remove the photograph, and it was assumed to be more difficult to replicate than the rubber stamp.

All of this effort was necessary because officials considered the photograph to be an authoritative likeness of a person – hence their concern that a substituted photograph would allow someone to easily claim the citizenship and identity the state had intended for someone else.  The concern with fraud led officials to employ the relatively less “accurate” identification technologies of the signature and the physical description to further ensure the photograph on the passport was indeed that of the person the State Department had issued the passport to.  Officials reduced the categories in the physical description to height, hair, and eyes, but as noted retained the recently added category for “distinguishing marks.”  From 1924 applicants had to sign the back of the passport photograph.  According to a State Department publication, this signature “provided a written record to identify the rightful bearer in the passport, reduced the possibility of fraud, and insured that the proper photograph was attached to the application and the passport.”

During the 1920s the State Department also clarified its policy to ensure that all passports carried a photograph of the bearer.  In 1921 the secretary of

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In 2002, Blake started LISHost, an affordable website hosting service for libraries and libraries. On the very rare occasion the LISHost server goes down, you can tell something’s amiss because half the known LIS world must house their sites there. I do, as does Michael Stephens, and we can both tell you from first-hand experience that Blake does a superhuman job of maintaining the server (especially security) and providing technical support.

I can’t think of a time when Blake hasn’t responded immediately when there was a problem, when he said no to a request to add software just for me, or when he didn’t come up with a creative solution to a problem no one else would have wanted to deal with. And for all of his hard work (truly, the man must not sleep), he charges next to nothing for the services you get.

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So here’s how it works. Everyone who donates $10 or more to LISHost by 11:59 p.m. on March 14, 2008, will be eligible to win the Wii. We’ll pull a name out of the digital hat, so-to-speak, and send you the Wii if you’re the lucky winner. To enter/donate, click on the button below. Your donation is your entry, as we’ll have a full list of names from Paypal.