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Clinical psychology involves the application of psychology to health and community care. Clinical psychologists work in specialties. The most common are:

adult mental health services (including a range of psychological therapy services)
adult mental health rehabilitation and resettlement services
child health care (including paediatric and, child and family mental health services)
services for people with learning disabilities
Services for older people (including mental and physical health services)
primary care services, management (including advising purchasers, and consultancy on health care systems)
general hospital acute services (including acute medical and surgical specialties)
neuropsychology (including neurological and neurosurgical services and neuropsychological rehabilitation)
services concerned with substance abuse (including those for people with alcohol and drugs problems)
forensic services
services for people with physical and sensory disabilities (including young disabled people and those described as ‘the chronic sick’)
HIV/AIDS service

Clinical psychologists also work in educational and social service settings. Clinical psychologists are problem solvers, formulating problems and questions in psychological terms and drawing creatively on a wealth of psychological theories and techniques from the discipline of psychology to find ways forward. Clinical psychologists work directly with complex problems involving individuals, couples, families, groups and service systems.Consultancy and training is provided to carers and health-care professionals to maximize the use of their psychological skills.

Organisational consultancy is carried out with provider and purchaser organisations on the psychological aspects of health and community care.

Clinical child psychologists have a wide range of skills in the assessment, treatment and management of psychological problems in children and young people with physical illness, disabilities, emotional, behavioural, educational and other difficulties. Their training is primarily in the context of health care and related services and involves considerable attention to the process of child development.

Clinical training will also have involved supervised practice with a full range of adults with mental health and other problems, with older adults and people with learning difficulties. This generic training complements the specialist child-related skills and enables a rounded and comprehensive approach to the assessment and treatment of children and their carers. Many child clinical psychologists develop specialist areas of expertise, including neuropsychological assessment, or the assessment, management and treatment of childhood abuse, disability, reactions to trauma, acute and chronic illness. They provide services for a range of organisations including health, social services, primary care, education and the voluntary sector.

Training encompasses a range of specialist psychological therapies and interventions and individuals will be skilled in one or more interventions such as family, cognitive, behaviour or psychodynamic therapies or work at an organisational level. Where problems co-exist, the intervention may occur at a number of different levels, for example individual behaviour management of a child plus cognitive therapy with parents and advice about management to schools or placement to social services.

Neuropsychology is concerned with the relationship between brain and behaviour. Clinical Neuropsychologists work with children and adults who have had an illness or injury affecting their brain. These include head injury, strokes, tumours, infections and degenerative diseases of the brain as well as conditions affecting other parts of the body which can influence brain function (e.g. diabetes, lung or heart conditions).

Clinical Neuropsychologists apply a scientific understanding of how brain dysfunction affects thinking, memory, emotions and behaviour. They are able to carry out specialist assessments of these functions in order to understand exactly what difficulties the person is having or is likely to have and to monitor any changes. They are often able to advise on the most likely outcome of such a condition and on how best to cope with any resulting long term difficulties, both for the individual and their family.

Clinical Neuropsychologists work closely with other colleagues in rehabilitation and education, helping people to minimise their difficulties and where possible to return to independent living and to work or education.

Chartered Counselling Psychologists work therapeutically with clients suffering from a broad range of complex psychological difficulties (for example, the effects of childhood sexual abuse, relationship breakdown, domestic violence, major trauma and more) and offer individually formulated therapeutic approaches to address all symptoms of psychological disorder or distress (such as anxiety, depression, eating disorders, post-traumatic stress disorder, psychosis). Counselling psychologists seek to build an active relationship with clients, which can both facilitate the collaborative exploration of underlying issues and empower individuals to confront and initiate changes. These interventions multi-modal and may take the form of individual therapy or may be part of a package of care.

Chartered Counselling Psychologists work in at all levels from assistant to consultant in NHS services (including primary care, Community Mental Health Teams, tertiary settings for psychiatric in-patients, specialist services for older adults, those with eating disorders, personality disorders, learning difficulties, children and adolescent services, substance misuse and dual diagnosis services (mental health problems combined with substance misuse) and in general health care settings where psychological services are offered); in prison and probationary services, social services, voluntary organisations, employee assistance programmes (EAPs), occupational health departments, university student and staff counselling services and in private practice. They may work with individuals, couples, families or groups.

The core professional activities of counselling psychologists relate principally to the provision of psychological therapy, including:

Educational and child psychologists are applied psychologists working both within the educational system and in the community. Educational and child psychologists work with children from 0-19 across all areas of disability. They are concerned with children’s learning, psychological well-being and development. They have skills in psychological and educational assessment, intervention techniques and methods for helping children and young people who are experiencing difficulties in learning or social adjustment.

They support other key professionals in the early identification of difficulties a child or young person may be experiencing and through psychological assessment and intervention work with others to optimise maximum independence for the child or young person in an educational context in order to promote life-long learning. They have a statutory role under current educational legislation in the assessment of children’s Special Educational Needs. Under Scottish legislation, educational psychologists also have a statutory role with respect to the Children’s Hearing System and are working very much within the legislation relating to the Presumption of Mainstream. They have a role and function in improving or optimising the learning and development of all children.

Much of the work of educational psychologists is with children and young people from 0–19 years (England & Wales) and 0-24 (Scotland) in different educational contexts though they also work extensively with parents/carers, teachers and other professionals. They offer a service to young people and adults in further and higher education.

Educational psychologists work with and within systems, applying different psychological knowledge and skills as appropriate at an individual, group or organisational level. Some of their work will be with individuals or with groups of children; other work is with adults in institutions and organisations.

Most educational psychologists in the UK work within the public sector and every parent/carer and child and all state-maintained schools are entitled to access to their service. A number of educational psychologists work in private practice and take direct referrals from parents, schools, doctors and others. These educational psychologists usually work outside the school system as sole practitioners or as members of a private service. Although much of their work is with individual clients and families, educational psychologists offer consultation and research to groups and institutions, particularly schools. Most educational psychologists, whether in private practice or working in the public sector, offer This includes staff training and development, systems analysis and evaluation.

Educational psychologists using the specialist term Chartered Educational Psychologist will have completed professional training on a Society-accredited postgraduate training course and be full members of the Division of Educational and Child Psychology or Scottish Division of Educational Psychology in accordance with current divisional membership rules.

Forensic Psychologists are concerned with all aspects of offending behaviour, including the offenders themselves, the structures by which they are detected, tried and convicted, offender interventions, dealing with victims and related issues, legal processes and the organisations and establishments that work with offenders and victims. A large proportion of forensic psychologists work within the prison service with a growing number working in secure mental health settings, the probation service, , the police, the Courts and within academic settings. With regards to the latter, there is a growing number of forensic psychologists in academic settings specialising in applied areas of research in forensic psychology, such as criminal profiling, eye witness testimony, child testimony and ‘what works’ in offender rehabilitation.

Forensic Psychologists using the specialist term Chartered Forensic Psychologist will have completed professional training on a Society-accredited postgraduate training course and are full members of the Division of Forensic Psychology in accordance with current divisional membership rules.

Health Psychology Services

Health psychology provides an integrated biological, psychological and social approach to the understanding of physical health and illness. It is the practice and application of psychological research to the prevention, treatment and management of disease, promoting and maintaining health, identifying key factors in the causation of illness, the improvement of the health care system and with a direct involvement in health policy formulation. The health psychology training in advanced health methods and statistics underpins their scientist-practitioner approach to clinical practice and enables them to provide expert advice and consultancy.
Health psychologists work from a strong, multidisciplinary research base and are trained to create and use evidence to benefit physical health, as in the evaluation of new treatments in clinical trials, e.g. the self-management of arthritis. Such interventions are used to address some of the management problems of chronic physical conditions, e.g. adherence in diabetes. They are also designed to change lifestyles by modifying risk factors with the aim of preventing major illnesses like coronary heart disease, renal failure, lung and bowel cancers. Health psychologists can provide new psychological methods to assess and improve health and health care, e.g. quality of life measures for trials, audit and clinical governance. They are well equipped to work in primary care, health promotion and public health, as well as in secondary and tertiary care settings.
Psychological principles in health often apply to the management of a range of disease groups, e.g. in pain management, rather than limiting them to a single medical speciality. Health psychologists work with adults and children in families, institutions, communities, organisations and populations, e.g. preventing teenage pregnancy. They use special methods and theory to design, implement and evaluate health promotion and education interventions, e.g. in smoking cessation, exercise uptake and dietary control. They are employed to teach lifestyle skills to patients and also to train other health professionals in psychological care. Health psychologists are engaged with the delivery of health care and have analytical skills that are valued in health management, administration and policy formation. At an organisational level, they might be working on staff development, audit or how best to promote the implementation of clinical guidelines.

Occupational psychologists are concerned with people in relation to work in the widest sense, both paid employment and other constructive and co-operative activities.
Their concern is how work tasks and conditions of work can affect people - developing them or constraining and stressing them - and also with how people and their characteristics determine what and how work is done. In consequence, they are concerned with:

Chartered Psychologists offer a wide range of services to social services departments (SSDs) and social work departments in Scotland (SWDs). Services offered are predominantly in the areas of child care and child health, people with long-term mental illness, care of the elderly and learning disabilitieslearning difficulties.

The changing nature of the profession and its training has led to more interventions for the clients of social services and the professional staff involved. SSDs and SWDs are major users of Chartered Psychologists’ time, but traditionally have not been direct employers. As their client populations are similar, SSDs and SWDs are provided with psychological services, usually either by counselling psychologists, clinical psychologists employed by NHS provider units, or by educational psychologists employed by a local education authority. A small number of Chartered Occupational Psychologists have contracts with SSDs and SWDs.

Teaching psychologists are concerned with the psychological aspects of teaching and learning - in other words, how to make both teaching and learning more effective. In doing so, they look at all aspects of teaching and learning, such as the social psychology of the classroom, revision and examination management, the skills needed for educational achievement, and how different methods of teaching can help people to learn. Teaching psychologists are usually based in colleges or universities rather than schools, and tend to be mainly concerned with teaching and learning for those who are in further, higher or adult education. They may also be concerned with vocational training and they will, of course, also teach psychology themselves.

No classification system describing the services offered by psychologists can take account of every area in which the application of psychological knowledge has been found to have practical benefits. However, in this section a number of additional areas in which some Chartered Psychologists offer services are described. Some have their origins in developing areas of applied research (for example, health psychology, sport psychology and market, social and consumer research), or are research services themselves.
Psychotherapy is not listed as a separate category, as psychotherapy represents an area in which Chartered Psychologists who have qualified in a variety of other areas offer a range of psychological and therapeutic services which are also offered by members of other professions (e.g. psychiatry). Therefore, to find Chartered Psychologists offering psychotherapy, look under the other headings, such as clinical psychology, counselling psychology and educationalpsychology.

Sport and exercise psychology involves the application of psychological principles to scientific research and practice in sport and exercise contexts. The majority of sport and exercise psychologists work within Higher Education, and their research and/or consultancies with athletes and exercisers run alongside teaching and administrative commitments. Increasingly, full-time positions are becoming available for sport and exercise psychologists to provide support for individual athletes, teams and sports organisations through, for example, financial support from sporting governing bodies or professional sports teams. In exercise settings, practitioners might be involved in the GP exercise referral or cardiac rehabilitation schemes. Although consultancy work may be office based, it is equally likely that sport and exercise psychologists will work in field settings such as team premises, youth academies, competition venues, clinical rehabilitation and recreational exercise settings.

Market, Social and Consumer Research Psychologists working to provide and use commercial research services are employed in a research executive capacity by market and social research agencies and as research advisers in-house by manufacturing and service companies, government departments and other organisations. They are concerned to:

Psychological Research

All applications of psychology have their bases in fundamental scientific research. Some Chartered Psychologists (many of whom may be employed in academic posts within the universities) offer their services as research psychologists to help clients solve practical problems, often within their particular area of expertise. For instance, a motor manufacturer or a government department may commission a research psychologist to investigate and then advise on aspects of vehicle safety. Almost all psychologists are engaged in some aspect of research, but this section lists psychologists who see their primary role as providing applied research and consultancy services in their particular area of expertise. As part of their individual entries, research psychologists will detail their particular areas of expertise, which may be quite specialised (e.g. advice on human factors in sick building syndrome) or more general (e.g. environmental psychology or economic psychology).

As the term ‘coaching’ has come into popular usage for one-to-one development services, psychological practitioners are increasingly using this term to describe the services they offer and psychologists who offer coaching services can now be found under all of the Section and Division listings within the Directory of Chartered Psychologists.

Coaching Psychology is an integrated form of practice that is client-centred, collaborative and focussed on using psychology holistically to facilitate positive outcomes that are meaningful to individuals, groups and organisations. Chartered psychologists using the term ‘Coaching Psychology’ to describe the services they offer may specialise in one domain of psychology, however, they will also draw upon a range of psychological ideas, models and techniques from across the profession. The primary goal of all coaching psychology services is the enhancement of wellbeing and success within all aspects of work and life.

Chartered psychologists offering both specialist and general coaching psychology services can be identified through their membership of the Special Group in Coaching Psychology (SGCP).