UWA Handbook 2026

Unit Overview

Description

This unit examines diversity and reflective practice in contemporary clinical psychology. Students explore concepts such as neurodiversity and neuro-affirming care and evaluate how interprofessional collaboration supports practice in diverse contexts. Key themes include identity, power, positionality, and unconscious bias, and how these shape assessment, formulation, and therapeutic processes with clients from diverse backgrounds and communities, including Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. Students are given the opportunity to engage with case studies and guided self-reflection, and to develop skills in cultural responsiveness and therapist self-awareness. The unit also addresses professional sustainability, including vicarious trauma, burnout, and practices that support the development of a grounded and reflective clinician.

Credit

6 points

Offering

Availability	Location	Mode	First year of offer
Not available in 2026	UWA (Perth)	On-campus

Outcomes

Students are able to (1) critically evaluate advanced psychological theories and developmental/biopsychosocial models relevant to the aetiology, progression, recovery, and maintenance of mental health disorders, and reflect on their implications for culturally responsive and safe, ethical clinical practice, including with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples; (2) demonstrate advanced understanding of psychopathology and international taxonomies of diagnostic classification systems, and apply culturally responsive principles, including with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cultures, to assessment using complex case scenarios; (3) integrate the results from appropriate psychometric tools, interview methods, collateral information, and behavioural observations to inform diagnosis, formulation, and treatment planning, and understand how to use and apply these in culturally responsive ways including in diverse interdisciplinary contexts, such as with Aboriginal Controlled Health Organisations; (4) justify appropriate, evidence-based psychological interventions for people with complex presentations, considering cultural (including Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cultures), contextual, and systemic factors, and skills in communicating this with other professionals in diverse contexts; and (5) plan for evaluation of treatment outcomes, therapeutic alliance, and ongoing monitoring to guide responsive, evolving formulation and intervention and how to relate this when working with interdisciplinary teams, including in Aboriginal Controlled Health Organisations in diverse contexts.

Assessment

Indicative assessments in this unit are as follows: (1) case report and (2) self reflection. Further information is available in the unit outline.

Student may be offered supplementary assessment in this unit if they meet the eligibility criteria.

Unit Coordinator(s)

Professor Jeneva Ohan

Unit rules

Prerequisites

Enrolment in

70580 Master of Clinical Psychology

and Successful completion of

PSYC5651 Advanced Psychological Practice II

Contact hours

36 hours (3-hour weekly workshops x 12)

Note

No textbook is required.