Specialty designation in psychology: developing a Canadian model

Canadian Psychology, Jan 1994 by Service, John

There is evidence of specialization in psychology in Canada. For instance, even though Canadian universities grant degrees in "psychology", their graduate programmes typically specialize in areas such as neuropsychology, industrial/organizational, counselling, clinical, developmental or school psychology. CPA accredits academic and internship programmes in clinical (CPA, 1984b) and counselling psychology (CPA, 1989). The accreditation of clinical neuropsychology programmes is currently being considered. References to specialties and specialists are common in official documents. For example, the stated purpose of the new CPA Section on Clinical Psychology is "To create within CPA a strong forum for the participation of clinical psychologists and students of clinical psychology" (CPA, 1990). Such a statement assumes that clinical psychologists are somehow identifiable as such. In addition, advertisements for psychologists, especially for non - academic psychologists, often use specialty qualifiers such as "school psychologist", "rehabilitation psychologist", "clinical psychologist", "clinical health psychologist", "neuropsychologist", "clinical neuropsychologist" in the position title or description of appropriate qualifications. The variations in specific terms used reveal the absence of any standardized nomenclature. Furthermore, individual psychologists often describe themselves by referring to their area of expertise within psychology with adjectives such as industrial/organizational, counselling, etc. Thus, in Canada it can be argued that de facto specialization exists and is readily identifiable. Nevertheless, as in the USA, there is as yet no formal recognition of specialties.

Specialty Designation: The Views of Canadian Psychologists

Clearly, if a formal system of specialty designation is to proceed in Canada, it must have the support of rank - and - file psychologists as well as the leadership of organized psychology within Canada. To obtain the views of Canadian psychologists on specialty designation, the Task Force surveyed the presidents of each of the provincial psychological associations and regulatory organizations, and the Chairs of each of the CPA Sections (N = 45) as well as a sample of individual psychologists randomly selected from CPA (N = 400) and provincial association or regulatory body (N = 400) membership lists. The distribution of the provincial sample reflected the geographic concentration of psychologists within Canada.

The 28 - item questionnaire sought five types of information: biographical data (this was omitted from the questionnaire sent to presidents and chairs), attitudes toward specialty designation, preferred structures for designating specialties, specialties to be designated, and the perceived advantages and disadvantages of specialty designation. A French - language version of the questionnaire was sent to the sample obtained from the Corporation professionnelle des psychologues du Quebec (CPPQ) membership list; this version was also made available to other respondents upon request.