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Job overview
Are you a compassionate Clinical or Counselling Psychologist looking to make a meaningful impact in your community? Join us in a role where you’ll be valued, supported, and inspired to grow. We are looking for an experienced and dedicated Clinical or Counselling Psychologist to join the Richmond Psychology & Psychotherapies service based in the Richmond Integrated Recovery Hub.
It is an exciting time to join our trust. Our community transformation has focused on improving access and provision for clients with severe mental health difficulties. The transformation has placed great emphasis on lived experience and peer support, working in partnership with primary care and developing new links with the voluntary sector.
We will also consider applications from newly qualified and recently qualified Clinical Psychologists eligible to occupy the post at band 7 in a preceptorship role.
Career Progression pathways and development opportunities:
We offer a robust professional development program. This post offers a number of opportunities for further training and development, both through NHS-E funded training (e.g. EMDR, CBTp, FIp) and in-house workshops, as well as accessing specialist supervision.
For preceptorship posts (Band 7 to 8a), there will be dedicated CPD funding up to £2000, and the opportunity to work one day per week in a different service in the Trust, to further develop specialist clinical skills.
Main duties of the job
The role is dynamic and will require you to attend multidisciplinary meetings and to offer supervision, consultation, and training to clinicians within the wider MDT team.
You will contribute to the delivery of evidence-based psychological therapies for severe and enduring mental health conditions, including psychosis & bipolar, personality disorders, and complex mood, anxiety disorders & PTSD. We value innovative practices to support our service users, continually evolving to meet the needs of our community.
You will utilise your research skills for audit, policy and service development and research within the area served by the team/service.
Agile and flexible working:
We understand the importance of work-life balance and are committed to supporting flexible working arrangements to help our team thrive both personally and professionally. As one of the few Trusts in London we are proud to offer flexible and agile working as part of our new ways of working, and we are happy to talk flexible working at the interview stage.
The Trust is committed to supporting flexible working, including a blended approach of on-site and home working.
This post is established a full-time Band 8a level but we welcome applications from final year Trainee Clinical Psychologists, and from Clinical / Counselling Psychologists with less than 18 months post qualification experience, who could progress from a Band 7 preceptorship to a Band 8a in this post.
Detailed job description and main responsibilities
To provide specialist psychological assessments of patients referred to the team based upon the appropriate use, interpretation and integration of complex psychological data from a variety of sources including psychological and neuropsychological tests, self-report measures, rating scales, direct and indirect structured observations and semi-structured interviews with clients, family members and others involved in the client’s care.
To formulate and implement plans for the formal psychological treatment and/or management of a client’s mental health problems, based upon an appropriate conceptual framework of the client’s problems, and employing methods based upon evidence of efficacy, across the full range of care settings.
To be responsible for implementing a range of psychological interventions for individuals, carers, families and groups, within and across teams employed individually and in synthesis, adjusting and refining psychological formulations drawing upon different explanatory models and maintaining a number of provisional hypotheses.
To evaluate and make decisions about treatment options taking into account both theoretical and therapeutic models and highly complex factors concerning historical and developmental processes that have shaped the individual, family or group.
To exercise autonomous professional responsibility for the assessment, treatment and discharge of clients whose problems are managed by psychologically based standard care plans.
To provide specialist psychological advice, guidance and consultation to other professionals both within the outpatient team and other eating disorder service teams/ CMHTs, contributing directly to clients’ formulation, diagnosis and treatment plan.
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Applications that rely heavily on AI-generated content can become generic and fail to accurately reflect an applicant's individual experience. Applications that clearly demonstrate your own voice, reflections and experiences are often the most effective and help us better understand your suitability for the role.
Please be aware that information provided in your application and supporting statement may be explored further during the selection process. It is important that all applications accurately represent your own knowledge, skills and experience.
Person specification
Other
Essential
- Ability to teach and train others, using a variety of complex multi-media materials suitable for presentations within public, professional and academic settings
- Ability to identify and employ mechanisms of clinical governance as appropriate, to support and maintain clinical practice in the face of regular exposure to highly emotive material and challenging behaviour
Desirable
- Personal experience of mental health problems
Experience
Essential
- Experience of specialist psychological assessment and treatment of clients across the full range of care settings, including outpatient, community, primary care and inpatient settings
- Experience of working with a wide variety of client groups, across the whole life course presenting problems that reflect the full range of clinical severity including maintaining a high degree of professionalism in the face of highly emotive and distressing problems, verbal abuse and the threat of physical abuse
- Demonstrate further specialist training/experience through having received a minimum of 50 hours clinical supervision while working as a specialist clinical/counselling psychologist or as a specialist cognitive behaviour therapist (significant demonstrable experience) or an alternative agreed by the Head of Psychology and Psychotherapies
Desirable
- Experience of teaching, training and/or supervision
- Experience of the application of clinical psychology in different cultural contexts
- Experience of working as part of a multi-disciplinary team
Knowledge & Skills
Essential
- Skills in the use of complex methods of psychological assessment, intervention and management frequently requiring sustained and intense concentration
- Well developed skills in the ability to communicate effectively, orally and in writing, complex, highly technical and/or clinically sensitive information to clients, their families, carers and other professional colleagues both within and outside the NHS
- Skills in providing consultation to other professional and non-professional groups
- Doctoral level knowledge of research methodology, research design and complex, multivariate data analysis as practiced within the clinical fields of psychology
Desirable
- Knowledge of the theory and practice of specialised psychological therapies in specific difficult to treat groups (e.g. dual diagnosis including people experiencing psychosis with personality disorder, substance misuse, learning disability, neurological dysfunction, additional disabilities etc)
- High level knowledge of the theory and practice of at least two specialised psychological therapies, including cognitive-behavioural therapy
Training & Qualifications
Essential
- Successful completion of post-graduate doctoral level training in Clinical/Counselling Psychology (or its equivalent for those trained prior to 1996) as accredited by the BPS prior to July 2009, or approved by the HCPC from July 2009, including specifically models of psychopathology, clinical psychometrics and neuropsychology, two or more distinct psychological therapies and lifespan developmental psychology
- Evidence of continuing professional development as recommended by the BPS/HCPC
- Registered with the Health & Care Professions Council (HCPC) in the appropriate professional domain
- OR Accredited practitioner of Cognitive Behaviour Therapy [CBT] by the British Association of Behavioural Cognitive Psychotherapy (BABCP
Desirable
- Pre-qualification training and qualifications in research methodology, staff training and/or other fields of applied psychology
- Advanced training in Behavioural Cognitive Psychotherapy.
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Applying for this NHS job
This advert is for Highly Specialist Clinical Psychologist with South West London and St George's Mental Health Trust NHS Trust in London, London, England. It is listed as a Psychologist role. The contract type is Permanent. The application deadline is 09 Aug 2026.
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