Addiction Training in Clinical Psychology: Does It Meet the Demand?
Clinical psychology is particularly well suited to offering a multifaceted response in order to help those living with a substance use disorder. A new study published in the academic journal American Psychologist investigates the extent to which current clinical psychology training is addressing the fact that addiction has emerged as a serious public health crisis, asking: ‘Are we keeping up with the rising epidemic?’
The authors surveyed clinical training at all APA-accredited US clinical psychology doctoral programmes on several occasions between 1999 and 2013. Within this timeframe, clinical programmes increased from 181 to 237. However, less than 40% had a minimum of one faculty member specialising in addiction. Less than a third offered any clinical training in addiction.
In effect, then, these results indicate that both the percentage of programmes offering specialised training in addiction and the number of factuality members with addiction expertise have not increased over the 14-year period. As such, the study advises that clinical psychology training must increase its focus on addiction research and practice to meet the current demand.