Developing as a Trainee Educational Psychologist: Establishing the Psychological Contract

There are two significant components of the three-year full-time doctoral programme required to train as an educational psychologist (EP) in England. These are the university-based academic component and the educational psychology (EP) service-based practice component. The purpose of this paper is to outline the ‘psychological contract’ to help understand the psychology of starting the bursary placement in the second year of the programme. Establishing the psychological contract is a concept that comes from organisational psychology to explain the dilemmas that face anyone starting a new job. Essentially it suggests that employees go through three stages of adaptation before they reach ‘nirvana’ – where there is mutual acceptance between the trainee educational psychologist (TEP) and the EP service. Strategies for moving through the three stages are outlined based on practical examples from trainees. Establishing the psychological contract is particularly relevant for understanding the psychological tasks that face a TEP starting their placement.