Clinical Psychology Brunel University of London

Overview

You’ll develop reflective, ethical and culturally informed practice, alongside strong communication and critical-thinking skills - all essential for clinical roles and postgraduate training. 

From the start, you’ll learn actively. You’ll work with clinical case material, take part in role-plays and simulated scenarios, and build reflective practice as a core professional skill. Teaching brings together cognitive-behavioural, third-wave and counselling-informed approaches, with a strong focus on formulation-driven decision-making in complex, real-world contexts.

Research is embedded throughout the course. You’ll explore how evidence is generated, analysed, and applied in clinical settings, with Brunel University of London’s advanced research facilities in cognitive and clinical neuroscience at your fingertips. 

Optional year-long placement

A standout feature of the programme is the optional year-long placement pathway - a rare opportunity within Clinical Psychology postgraduate degrees. If you choose the placement pathway, you’ll gain sustained, meaningful experience in clinical or mental health settings, developing your professional skills through supervised practice. You’ll also receive dedicated academic and careers support. This extended real-world experience, combined with structured support, gives you a strong platform for competitive applications to clinical training and related careers.

Careers and your future

You’ll be well prepared for a wide range of clinically relevant roles across the NHS, charities, public health and community mental health services. Many of these roles involve supporting or delivering psychological interventions within structured, supervised settings - valuable experience if you want to work directly with people experiencing mental health difficulties.

The programme is designed as a strong foundation for roles such as Assistant Psychologist, Psychological Wellbeing Practitioner and other early-career therapeutic positions. The combination of academic training and optional placement experience supports progression into practitioner pathways, including Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) and counselling-based roles.

This course isn’t a professional training qualification and doesn’t lead to registration as a clinical psychologist with the Health and Care Professions Council (HCPC). But it’s designed to help you take your next step. You’ll build the clinical knowledge, research skills and applied experience that employers and training providers are looking for. You’ll also have opportunities to gain real-world experience through placements, helping you understand what working in clinical or applied settings is really like. On successful completion of the course, you could progress to:

• Clinical Psychology Doctorate (DClinPsy) programmes
• Professional training in Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT)
• Counselling Psychology Doctorates or accredited counselling training
• Other practitioner psychologist routes, including health psychology and specialist clinical training

The placement pathway plays a key role in this progression, offering clinically relevant, supervised and intervention-focused experience that's essential for competitive applications.

You’ll also develop applied psychological skills that transfer well beyond traditional clinical roles - including assessment, formulation, low-intensity intervention delivery, use of psychometric tools and foundational counselling skills.

These strengths open doors to careers in:

• Public health and wellbeing services
• Charities and third-sector organisations
• Educational and school-based support services
• Occupational and workplace wellbeing
• Community mental health and early intervention services
• Research, evaluation and service development roles