Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia (UKM): Masters in Clinical Psychology

HI, yes, I think you need a psychology degree before you can study clinical psychology. However, you could always call UKM to check with them directly. As a medical doctor have you considered becoming a psychiatrist? You could do extra training in talking therapy after you qualify.

I’m not sure whether UKM will accept a Major in Sociology when you’ve studied a lot of psychology. I guess it will depend on which Psychology subjects you took during the degree. Perhaps you can check with them directly to find out for sure.

I’m not sure – that will be a decision for the admissions tutors on the course. I think they usually prefer some work experience too (but again it’s their decision).

Unfortunately, I don’t know who you’d need to contact within UKM. There website address is http://www.ukm.my/fsk/future-students/postgraduate/programmes-offered/master-of-clinical-psychology/ . Some of it is in Malay so you may be able to find the contact information better than I can.

Hi Santhiya, I don’t know whether UKM requires that you have the certificate or whether they will accept a transcript. You could ask them directly or just apply and see what happens. However, they are likely to want you to have some work experience before you apply.

Hi, I don’t know about the criteria for a regular research PhD. That will depend on the PhD supervisor who you are applying to. Most clinical psychology programmes require the equivalent of an upper second class honours (above 60). Perhaps you can contact UK directly to make enquiries.

Hi Janice, to be a psychiatrist you first need to be a medical doctor. If you’re already a psychiatrist then you probably don’t need to do a Clinical Psychology course. Instead you can do training courses to improve your skills in talking therapies. If you are looking for good quality online courses I like Russ Harris’ ACT courses on psychwire.com. In order to apply for a clinical psychology course you will normally need to have an undergraduate degree in psychology. You could contact UKM to check with them if they will accept the Masters you do have.

The usual requirement is an undergraduate degree in psychology but I don’t know UKM’s exact requirements. Perhaps you could contact them to ask what they would accept. If they respond please let us know in the comments below so others can benefit from what you find out.

Hi Ally, I think the Masters at UKM is open to anyone that has a psychology degree. I know several Clinical Psychologists who trained at UKM but studied their undergraduate psychology degree at other universities.

Hi Husna, I don’t know how the interviews at UKM are run so I don’t know how to advise you to prepare for them. However, in the UK this was a really popular book to read before interviews as it gives a good explanation of how to think about people’s difficulties from different perspectives, including CBT: Formulation in Psychology & Psychotherapy by Lucy Johnstone. There’s also some good articles available for free on Psychwire. If you can find people who have already attended the interviews they may be able to give you more information on how to prepare.

Hi Hisana, as far as I know Malaysia would prefer if you came here to study and then returned to your own country immediately after qualifying. It would be more of a problem if you wanted to stay and work in Malaysia as it’s currently difficult to get a visa to do so. Just as a side note, clinical psychology courses require that you do practical training as part of the course. So you’ll need to ‘work’ as part of the course although it won’t be paid work.

Hi Chelsie, I just checked the following link https://www.ukm.my/fsk/deputy-dean-graduate-school-office/master-of-clinical-psychology/ and it seems to be working. It’s possible that the website was temporarily down. I think the Masters in Health Psychology is a different course. If you get stuck I’d recommend calling UKM and asking for their department to get more information.

Hi Ali, unfortunately I don’t know enough about the UKM admissions process to say whether they would accept a trainee from Iraq. UKM has stronger links with the local government services and therefore has more students who have previously worked with government services. There may be some problems with getting a work visa during your studies. It will be extremely difficult to get a work visa for Malaysia once you have finished your studies (the pandemic has led to Malaysia being less open to foreign workers). That would mean you would probably need to work in another country. The challenge there is that the Malaysian qualification is not automatically accepted in other countries. If your plan was to work in another country after Malaysia then it would be a good idea to check whether that country would accept the Malaysian qualification.

Hi Roselind, unfortunatley I don’t know enough about UKM’s internal rules to say for sure. Have you tried contacting their admissions team?