Clinical psychology: psychological assessment and counselling
Aims
The course aim at offering professional techniques and tools required to carry on a complete psychological assessment and at supplying an effective counselling intervention. It shall take into account some critical aspects of resources assessment and individual and relational critical points required for the most possible correct and exhaustive management of a case and for a diagnose targeted to the best intervention on the person, also in multidisciplinary perspective. More specifically, the final aim is that of supplying participants with appropriate skills to become expert in:
- Reading and clearly under standing the demand for help;
- Identify and plan the most effective diagnostic activities through appropriate methodologies and tool;
- Preparing and utilising the psycho-diagnostic interview in an appropriate way in order to get to the full understanding of the person;
- Supply the most professional and effective reconstruction of the case and in the most coherent way to meet the request of help and psychological support.
Teaching Programme
The course will be structure in 2 areas: a) assessment area and b) intervention area.
Learning tools: As it regards teaching methodologies different types of training activities are envisaged: face-to-face lessons, technical demos, presentation of problems and cases, example of diagnostic reports, practice work, simulations and other practical-experiential activities.
Courses organisation: the lessons will be delivered by experts at International level working in renowned research institutes and universities. Several meetings will be organised on various issues that will be deepened from a theoretical, practical-experiential and collaborative and peer-to-peer communication.
From a theoretical perspective the main issues treated in the digitised videolessons deal with:
- Psychological survey tools;
- Psychopathologic diagnosis;
- Models and strategies for psychological intervention.
From an experiential perspective the following issues will be deepened:
- Organisation of the clinical interview as psychological moment for listening;
- Setting the objectives of the intervention and support to the person;
- Identifying the most appropriate strategies to face personal uneasiness;
- Promoting the person’s autonomous capacities taking into account his/her strong and weak points;
- Promotion of his/her relational and social skills.
Teaching method
The teaching method is based on the Internet and in the “Master” section of the portal www.uninettunouniversity.net , the first portal of the world where teaching is delivered in 4 languages: Italian, English, French and Arabic.
The psycho-pedagogic model that is characterised by the shift:
· From teacher’s central role to the student’s central role;
· From knowledge transfer to knowledge creation;
· From a passive and competitive learning to active and collaborative learning
Students play an active role in their own learning process and can study whenever and wherever they prefer to. Along their training path, students are supported by an online tutoring system that facilitate their training and web-based communication path and that supplies them with the tools
the tools to carry out their study of a specific subject successfully.
Online tutoring is organised in classes of students and is based on a advanced system of agenda that can acknowledge any individual student and therefore customise and get the tracking of all training activities and qualitative and quantitative evaluation of the each individual student’s learning progress.
How to study
The didactic activities on the Internet unfold in the Web-based macro-area, called the Didactic Cyberspace. In the Didactic Cyberspace the training and learning process takes place and access profiles are diversified through customized logins and passwords based on the three different roles played by the actors of the learning process: Professors, Tutors and Students. These three categories of users can access the same information related to each course. In particular the Professors and Tutors can edit or replace training materials and add new ones for the whole course delivery period, whereas the student has at his disposal an area where he can enter data, information and personal notes.
The student can access:
- the Page of the Appointed Teaching Professor
- the Page of the Tutor.
On these pages there are the Learning Environments where is possible to access:
Didactic Materials which represent the course contents:
Digitized video lessons including bookmarks allowing for hypertextual and multimedia linking to books, selected bibliographical references, texts of the exercises, lists of selected websites. The system of dynamic bookmarks gives the Internet-based videolessons a hypertextual character allowing different levels of navigation: from one lesson to the other one, among subjects of a single lesson, between the materials referring to the same subject.
Distance Tutoring:
the students enrolled in the Master’s course will be assisted in every step of their study path by Telematic Professors-Tutors. The Telematic Professor-Tutor, represents a guide as well as a constant presence along the Learning Process. The distance Tutoring activities may be carried out in two ways:
- in a synchronic manner, by using chats, videochats, video and audio-conferencing, implemented in the Didactic Cyberspace, but also the three-dimensional classroom created on the UTIU Island of knowledge on Second Life.
- in a diachronic manner, through tools such as e-mail and discussion forums on the Internet. The discussion forums, related to the topics of a given teaching subject, enable to enlarge dialogue and trigger a collaborative learning and give the opportunity for autonomous thinking on the issue being discussed and on the study activities carried on.
The virtual classroom in UNINETTUNO Island of Knowledge on Second Life
On UNINETTUNO (International Telematic University) Island of Knowledge we realised a 3D Auditorium devoted to the Master’s course. In this environment the students and professors/tutors’ avatars interact in the three-dimensional world of UNINETTUNO by their voice. Practice work, assessment tests and videoconferences with the protagonists of the European Union attending through their avatars are carried out, as well as real-time practice activities guided by the professors/tutors’ avatars.
In the virtual classroom of Second Life on the UNINETTUNO Island of Knowledge the students and the professors/tutors teach and learn in a collaborative and cooperative way; they build and share knowledge with people belonging to different political, cultural and religious settings, they dialogue, cultural differences are confronted, socialization processes are implemented as well as the creation of new knowledge.