Entry requirements
Only open to MSc students in Psychology with specialisation Child and Adolescent Psychology, Clinical Psychology, Clinical Neuropsychology, Health and Medical Psychology or School Psychology
Mandatory courses as specified in the Course and Examination Regulations.
Description
Students in the aforementioned speialisations can extend the standard internship (10 EC) to a Clinical Practical Internship of 20 EC if they aim to qualify for a postmaster program in Health Care Psychology. A Clinical Practical Internship comprises of performing professional skills such as diagnostics, practicing interventions, counselling or coaching of clients in Health Care Institutions. There are various ways to find a position to do an internship. Most students find an internship of their choice in the public health sector in the Netherlands or abroad. The internship coordinator of the master specialisation has information on health care institutions that have offered clinical practical internships in the past.
Within the institution, a qualified staff member will be responsible for the daily supervision of the student. An internship contract needs to be signed by the student, a field supervisor and the university supervisor in order to formally describe the mutual agreement about the internship requirements.
In all cases, a staff member of the university will supervise the internship on an individual basis or in group meetings. This university staff member is responsible for the grading of the internship.
Please note: A Clinical Practical Internship in a Dutch health care institution is generally only available to students who master the Dutch language. As an alternative, international students may opt for an Internal Practical Internship (10 EC) offered by the Institute of Psychology or they may try to find a Clinical Practical Internship (20 EC) or a practical/research internship (10 EC) in a country whose language they speak. Students from Greece, however, should be aware that due to new regulations by the Greek Government, internships in any other country than the Netherlands will not be legally recognised. These students should consider an internship in the Netherlands, either a practical/research internship (10 EC) or an Internal Practical Internship (10 EC). See for more information the pages on Blackboard per specialisation.
As part of such a Clinical Practical Internship of 20 EC, the subject Ethical, Organisational and Legal Aspects of Health Care has to be addressed as part of the final report on the internship. See manual for more information.
Students can apply for supervision on psychodiagnostic cases during their internship to obtain the “Basisaantekening Psychodiagnostiek” (Basic Qualification in Psychodiagnostics), a Dutch registration of the Dutch Association of Psychologists. The supervision on psychodiagnostic cases starts preferably during the internship but has to start within a month after the ending of the internship and while the student is still enrolled in the university. See for procedure the specific information of the master specialisation on this subject publicized on Blackboard.
Course objectives
In the internship, students learn to:
apply their knowledge, understanding and problem solving abilities in a new and unfamiliar task environment within a broader (or multi-disciplinary) context related to their field of specialisation.
integrate knowledge and handle complexity by formulating judgments with incomplete or limited information. These judgements should reflect social and ethical responsibilities.
perform basic skills to provide evidence-based psychological treatment (or parts thereof) to clients
perform specialized skills in the area of interviewing, observing, and reporting;
learn how to communicate their judgements (and the knowledge and rationale underpinning these judgements) clearly and unambiguously to specialist and non-specialist audiences.
Registration
Registration with the internship coordinator of the student’s specialisation.
Mode of instruction
560 practical hours
Assessment method
The student writes an internship report. Assessment by a university staff member. The assessment is based on a set of evaluation criteria specific for the master specialisation of the student.
The student has to address ethical, organizational and legal aspects of health care in his or her internship report. Information on this can be found in the Manual for Clinical Practical Internship on the respective pages on Blackboard of the specialisations.
The Faculty of Social and Behavioural Sciences has instituted that instructors use a software programme for the systematic detection of plagiarism in students’ written work. In case of fraud disciplinary actions will be taken.
Reading list
For Dutch students in the Clinical Internship the required reading is:
Boot, J.M.D.(2015) Organisatie van de gezondheidszorg (3e herziene druk), Assen: Koninklijke van Gorcum. ISBN 9789023253822.
For both Dutch and international students the ethical code of the Dutch Association of Psychologists or the American Association of Psychologists is required reading for the internship:
Dutch Association of Psychologists code
Code of conduct of the American Psychological Association
Labyrint webshop
Members of Labyrint, the Leiden Study Association in Psychology, can purchase books with a discount from the Labyrint webshop.
Contact information
Internship coordinator of the Master specialisation