“It’s just like a waiting room”: The lived experiences of psychology students seeking professional training programme admission in South Africa

Abstract

We aimed to explore the lived experiences of South African psychology students of professional training opportunities and career prospects. Informants were eight psychology Honours students attending a South African public university. Interpretive phenomenological analysis of the data yielded four themes recurrent in most participant’s experiences: (i) personal capacity development; (ii) feeling stuck with nothing; (iii) sense of disillusionment and uncertainty; and (iv) low career prospects. The students considered psychology studies beneficial to their personal growth although they were uncertain about their futures, accessing professional training programs, and employment in the field. The uncertainty to access professional training contributes to a sense of unemployability in the South African mental health field.

Keywords:

• career
• Honours degree
• profession of psychology
• qualitative
• South Africa