New Master's Degree in Psychology

The management here at Universidad San Francisco de Quito have given the go-ahead for us to develop a new master’s degree for training clinical psychologists. It will, without a doubt, be the best clinical psychology training course in Ecuador. The core trainers all have doctoral degrees in clinical psychology from highly respected institutes in the USA. In addition to this we have several full-time psychology professors with research PhDs from top universities in the USA and UK. None of the other universities can muster such academic weight, with most of their professors having only masters’, or lower, degrees. And often those master’s degrees were earned online.

The program will be directed by Dr Richard West. It will follow an evidence-based model with the psychotherapy component focused on Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT). This makes perfect sense, CBT has much more evidence to support its clinical efficacy than any other psychotherapy.  

Such a course is sorely needed in Ecuador. Due to a lack of appropriate regulation, people with only undergraduate level training can call themselves ‘psychologist’ or even ‘clinical psychologist’. Consequently, there is much quackery passed off as professional practice. The situation is changing though and soon a postgraduate qualification will be needed to use the title ‘psychologist’- hence the new master’s program.

It won’t be ready to go for a while, it still needs to be approved by the national authorities, but it will likely have its first intake in 2016. In addition, a second master’s degree is being planned that will take a more eclectic approach and focus more on sub-clinical clients and counselling skills. That will be directed by Dr Teresa Borja.