To meet the growing needs for mental health care, the Legault government is setting up a working group chaired by former Liberal minister Hélène David. One of the group’s objectives: to accelerate training in psychology.
In November, The Press published an article reporting on the very long studies required of young people who aspire to become psychologists and the impasse towards which large cohorts of students are directed, year after year.
Because if hundreds of students are admitted to the baccalaureate each year in Quebec universities, only a handful are accepted for the doctorate, which is however compulsory to obtain the title of psychologist.
Result: these young people find themselves in a mad race for grades and they see the vast majority of their hopes being disappointed.
In a telephone interview, Pascale Déry, Minister of Higher Education, indicated that solutions must be found to the current “cul-de-sac”.
“A review of the training course” is therefore necessary, said the minister, adding that everything is on the table.
Mme Déry asks the main players – the universities and the Order of Psychologists, in particular – to meet “urgently”, and by February, she hopes to have preliminary orientations in hand.
Guidance promised in February
Hélène David — who herself was a clinical psychologist and professor of psychology at the University of Montreal — is coming out of retirement with a clear enthusiasm for this file which is very close to her heart. Her desire, she said in an interview, is to get things moving quickly, with a report scheduled for the spring and the objective from then on of implementing three or four initial recommendations.
PHOTO PASCAL RATTHÉ, LE SOLEIL ARCHIVES
Hélène David, former Liberal minister
It was in 2006 that the requirement of a doctorate to be a psychologist in Quebec was introduced in Quebec. At the time, Hélène David saw the thing in a good light, but she regrets that it resulted in studies as long as to be a doctor and in a funnel of admissions to the doctorate (universities not having enough professors to supervise a large number of theses).
Over the years, too many students have seen “their talent wasted” and have been forced to start their studies from scratch in a completely different field, laments Ms.me David.
The idea now is to see if doctoral studies in psychology could be shortened, but also to see how, after a single baccalaureate, the expertise of students in psychology could be put to good use.
Hélène David evokes for example the case of schools, where the shortage of psychologists is glaring.
School psychologists would no doubt be relieved, she said, to be supported in their tasks by graduates who might not necessarily have the title of psychologist, but who could work under their supervision.
Other provinces have already invented this kind of intermediate jobs, in a way, after training less long than a doctorate, underlines Ms.me David.
The president of the Order of Psychologists, the DD Christine Grou, said she was very open to taking part in the working group chaired by Hélène David.
It does not close the door to faster graduation and slightly shorter training, but on the express condition that the high skills necessary for the profession of psychologist have indeed been acquired.