The study involved a mail survey of all 150 intern clinical psychologists registered with the HPCSA during the year 2009. A response rate of 55.3% was achieved with a representative provincial distribution. The results indicated that 34.9% of the respondents felt adequately prepared for the internship and 53% felt only partly prepared, while 53% considered the training to be relevant and 31.3% felt it was only partly relevant. Although the majority of the respondents were satisfied with various components of their work and supervision, less than half reported having adequate infra-structural support. Only 12% had completed their Masters' dissertations, and less than one-third of the sample favoured the proposed HPCSA ruling on dissertation completion before the internship. The majority of respondents were keen to pursue further research and a doctorate. One-third had planned to emigrate, and this group showed significantly higher levels of dissatisfaction with aspects of the training and supervision, experienced significantly more language difficulties with patients, and had significantly less favourable views of Community Service. The results are discussed within the context of local and international training issues in Professional Psychology, with some recommendations provided.

This article reviews responses of South African clinical psychologists to multicultural issues within an increasingly diverse and globalised context. Psychological perspectives on diversity, multiculturalism, and globalisation are presented initially as background to a review of multicultural and cross-cultural clinical psychological research conducted within the South African context. The discussion is located within the context of South African psychologists’ historical response to multicultural issues, within a unique socio-political situation. Implications for ongoing development of relevant clinical psychology services to address the diverse needs of all sectors of South African society are also discussed.

This paper presents a review of theoretical and empirical research on personality disturbance in adolescents living with HIV/AIDS. First we discuss the relationship between mental health in adolescents and HIV/AIDS, and second we provide an overview of personality disturbance in adolescence with particular attention given to: (a) the prevalence and presence of personality disturbance in adolescents living with HIV/AIDS (b) the effect of personality disturbance on compliance on antiretroviral treatment and (c) stress of an HIV diagnosis in adolescents with personality disturbance. In conclusion treatment issues and recommendations are discussed.

In this article, perspectives of South African clinical psychologists (based in KwaZulu-Natal) regarding multicultural issues in clinical practice and training are presented. The discussion focuses on emergent themes from 13 qualitative semi-structured interviews. Themes from interviews were analysed using thematic analysis and techniques from a grounded theory approach. While the study focused on a number of contextual multicultural issues both in service delivery and in training, this article documents the experiences of clinical psychologists regarding multicultural challenges and concerns, as well as approaches and capacities used to improve service delivery in this area. These perspectives are important in the multicultural and multilingual South African context, where there is limited literature in this area as well as related aspects such as cultural competency. There are many different belief systems as well as historical and sociopolitical factors that may influence how clinicians and individuals presenting for treatment may understand their experience and symptoms. This article seeks to document some of the challenges this may present in terms of service delivery in this context. Understandings of the term cultural competence as well as suggestions (primarily as noted by participants) to address the gap between training, competencies, and the realities of service delivery are also presented. Questions and considerations for future research are also raised.

Inpatient psychotherapeutic services for patients experiencing high levels of psychological distress are scarce in South Africa. Furthermore, follow-up research with patients receiving this type of mental health care is also limited. This study focuses on patients treated at an inpatient psychotherapeutic unit offering individual and group psychotherapies to adults, by assessing their experiences following admission to the unit. Patients' experiences during their admission and since discharge from the unit, mental health status since admission, compliance in terms of outpatient mental health care, current quality of relationships with family and friends, and the impact of the patients' mental illness on their work situation are examined. The challenges encountered in such research are also explored.