How Difficult is M.Phil. Clinical Psychology Exam? Why so much confusion?


How Difficult is MPhil Clinical Psychology?
Why so much confusion?

Clinical psychology is an integration of science, theory, and clinical knowledge for the purpose of understanding, preventing and relieving psychologically-based distress or dysfunction and to promote subjective well-being and personal development. In India, those who want their career as mental health practitioners have to complete a two-year course in clinical psychology from an RCI recognized Institution.

Why so much confusion about the MPhil Clinical Psychology exam

There is a lot of confusion and unawareness about the MPhil Clinical Psychology exam. The primary reason for the same is that this program is not like any typical MPhil exam but the course is very different from conventional M.Phil. degrees. While the typical M.Phil. program is mostly devoted to research methodology and thesis writing, M.Phil. Clinical Psychology is devoted to clinical training, research, and practice. Since these programs are affiliated with and recognized by RCI, the paper setting pattern is solely left to the discretion of the institute which runs the program. And different institutes have set their own rules for the exam and no two institutes have the same rules. Because of all these things, there is a lot of confusion among students and some coaching centers are promoting this confusion and misinformation for their own benefit.

The Name Confusion

Most students who take M.Phil. Clinical Psychology exam, go to the exam centers with the mindset that the exam is about disorders and DSM. However, that’s not even slightly true. The paper is heavily dominated by Research and Stat questions and only a tiny portion of the paper is dedicated to abnormal psychology.

How difficult is The Exam?

The difficulty of any exam depends on several factors like the number of seats, the number of candidates, the paper setting agency/university, popularity of the exam, Reservation rules. However, some institutes have maintained a high standard of paper setting. We have created a scale of difficulty for the M.Phil. Clinical Psychology exams on a scale with a range of 1-10, where 1 means very low difficulty, 5 means Average difficulty, and 10 means very high difficulty level. Since judging the difficulty level is a subjective thing and different students perceive exams differently, we have interviewed as many candidates as we could who have written different Clinical Psychology exams, and below are the mean scores for the same (n=28).

INSTITUTION/UNIVERSITY
EXAM DIFFICULTY (1-10)
IHBAS
9
NIMHANS
8
CIP
8
RML DELHI
7
KGMU, LUCKNOW
8
CALCUTTA UNIVERSITY
8.5
GUJRAT FORENSIC UNIVERSITY
7.5
RINPAS
7
IMHH, AGRA
8
IMHANS, KERALA 
9.5
RIMPS, IMPHAL
7
GMC, CHANDIGARH
7.5
AMITY UNIVERSITY (All Campuses)
5


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