National Psychology Exam

What a boundary is, the Code's standards on objectivity, physical contact, self-disclosure, personal beliefs and relationships with clients and former clients, and how to decide and manage a multiple relationship.

The four kinds of notifiable conduct, the thresholds for non-treating practitioners, treating practitioners and employers, what a reasonable belief is, the protections for notifiers, and the events a practitioner must notify about themselves.

What the Health Practitioner Regulation National Law requires of registered psychologists, who does what under it, and what happens when a concern is raised about a practitioner.

Which privacy law covers client records, when clients can see their file, what a record should contain, how records are stored and disposed of, and how long they are kept.

What anti-discrimination law and the Code require when a psychologist decides who to see, how to provide the service, and what to write in a report.

When the mental health Acts allow treatment without consent, how the criteria differ between states and territories, what a psychologist can and cannot do, and how capacity and consent are assessed.

What a psychologist does when a client may harm someone else or themselves, when information can be disclosed without consent, what the firearms Acts allow, and who decides for an adult who lacks capacity.

Which reports the law requires and which are a professional judgement, how child protection reporting differs between states and territories, and what to do when a client discloses a crime.

Who the client is, when a young person can consent for themselves, what each parent can consent to and be told, and how separated families change the picture.

How a third party paying for treatment changes consent, reporting and confidentiality, what the schemes cover, including victims of crime schemes in all eight jurisdictions, and why the treating psychologist does not become the assessor.

Who can provide and claim Better Access services, what the referral and reporting rules are, what the NDIS requires of providers, how DVA funding works, and what a Medicare audit looks for.

The difference between treating and assessing for a third party, what to do when a subpoena arrives, how counselling records can be protected, and what the courts' expert witness rules ask of a psychologist.

What the 2020 National Agreement is, its four priority reforms and its outcomes, and how the Code, the competencies and the APS guideline carry cultural safety into a psychologist's practice.

What the Board's Code of conduct is for, what it does not do, how its eleven principles are organised, what it emphasises, and how to find the principle that applies to a situation.

How to reason through an ethical dilemma: the steps the published models share, the decision assistance model written for Australian psychologists, other models, and what to do when duties to different people conflict.

What is kept confidential, the limits of confidentiality and how to explain them, and how the limits apply to risk, third parties, supervision, interpreters, records and closing a practice.

What the Code's informed consent process requires, how capacity is judged, and how consent works when the service changes, a third party pays, several clients share a service, or there is an emergency.

What the Code and the Board's fact sheets say about working within one's competence, what an individual scope of practice is, how to extend it, and how to refer, delegate and hand over.

What the Code and the APS record keeping guidelines require of a clinical record, how it is corrected and kept, and how records are handled in supervision, when services change hands or when a practice closes.

The National Law's advertising rules as the advertising guidelines explain them, titles and specialist claims, testimonials and reviews, and the Code and Ahpra guidance on social media.

What the continuing professional development, professional indemnity insurance and recency of practice standards require, who each applies to, and what happens when a standard is not met.

How the Code frames cultural safety for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples and culturally reflective practice for all communities, who decides whether practice is safe, and what culturally safe practice looks like in a session.

What supervision and peer consultation are, who needs a Board-approved supervisor, how supervision works in the 5+1 internship, what the Code requires of supervisors, and how to use supervision and consultation well.

How the Board defines purposeful and deliberate practice, what it involves, the strategies that encourage it, and how client outcome and alliance feedback show where to practise.

What the CPD standard and the National Law require, how the Board's self-directed model works, peer consultation, leave and exemptions, supervisors' refresher training, and how psychologists maintain competence.

The Code's obligations about a psychologist's own health and colleagues' health, the difference between a health condition and an impairment, what reflection, reflexivity and positionality mean, and practical self-care.

What transference and countertransference are, how to tell whether a reaction comes from the client or from the psychologist, how to work with both, and how the Code's boundary rules apply.

How the Board defines professional identity and how it develops, the professional values the Code describes, how scope of practice is defined and safely expanded, and what an endorsement means.

What the DASS measures and does not measure, how the DASS-21 is scored and read against each set of cut-offs, what the severity ratings mean, the Australian percentile norms, and how the three scales are read with care.

What the K10 measures, how it is scored and grouped in Australia, what a total says about the likelihood of a disorder, how it is used with the GP, the K6 and K5, and who it has not been validated for.

The psychometric concepts needed to judge whether a test suits a purpose and a person, and to read its scores: what counts as a test, evaluating a test from its manual, reliability and the standard error of measurement, validity, norms and standardisation, derived scores, reliable change, base rates and prediction, and short forms, faking and online testing.

Turning a referral into a referral question, deciding whether to test at all, matching the tool to the referral question and the person, and handling computer-written reports and requests for test material.

The assessment methods beyond tests: structured and unstructured interviews and their errors, systematic behavioural observation and its recording methods, self-monitoring, collaborative goal setting, and feedback from and to clients and others.

What cultural safety asks of the psychologist, how assessment has undermined equity, whether a test is equivalent for this person, interpreters and accommodations, working in the room with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander clients, tiered assessment for a young person from another culture, and what the report says.

What risk means in an assessment, harm to the person during testing, results that mislead, misuse of results and test material, third-party settings and the psychologist's own limits, and what to do when an assessment causes harm.

What the PAI measures, how it is administered and scored, how the validity scales, the clinical scales and the rest of the profile are read, what it does not cover, who it has and has not been validated for, and how the results are reported and given to a client.

What the SDQ measures, who completes it and how, how it is scored and banded, what the impact supplement adds, what the norms do and do not do, how the results guide further assessment and review, and who it has and has not been validated for.

What the WAIS-IV measures, its structure and scores, how it is administered, retested and modified, how a profile is interpreted step by step, intellectual disability, when to use the WAIS rather than the WISC, who it has and has not been validated for, and how the results are reported.

What the WISC-V A&NZ measures and who it is normed on, its primary, ancillary and complementary indexes, the substitution and proration rules, how it is administered and retested, how strengths and weaknesses are determined from the profile, what it shows in intellectual disability, giftedness, learning disorders and ADHD, the choice at 16, who it has and has not been validated for, and how results are reported to parents and schools.

What the WASI-II, WPPSI-IV, Stanford-Binet 5, Woodcock-Johnson IV and Raven's Progressive Matrices each measure, who each suits by age, language and purpose, which have Australian norms, when one is chosen over a core Wechsler scale, and who they have and have not been validated for.

What the WIAT-III A&NZ, WMS-IV and WRAML3 measure, their batteries, ages and norms, how achievement is read against ability in a learning disorder assessment, how memory is read against general ability and within itself using the WMS-IV contrast scores, what else lowers a memory score, and who these tests have and have not been validated for.

What the ABAS-3 measures and how adaptive functioning decides an intellectual disability diagnosis and its severity, what the Achenbach parent, teacher and youth forms measure and how their scales are read across informants and norms, and who these measures have and have not been validated for.

What the MMPI-2, the NEO inventories and the 16PF each measure and were built for, how a clinical inventory differs from a normal-range one, how the MMPI's validity scales and T-score bands are read, which of the three has Australian norms, and who they have and have not been validated for.

Holland's six interest types and the hexagon, what the Self-Directed Search and the Strong Interest Inventory each measure and how they are administered, scored and normed in Australia, what an interest measure predicts and does not, how interests sit within a vocational profile of abilities and personality, and who the two instruments have and have not been validated for.

What the BDI-II, PHQ-9 and STAI measure and how they are scored and banded, what a positive suicide item requires, what the SCID is and is not for, what the ORS measures session by session and what the two reading-list studies found, which of the five carry Australian data, and who they have and have not been validated for.

What the WHODAS 2.0 measures and in which versions and forms, how its two scoring routes work and how a profile is read, why it replaced the GAF in the DSM-5, what the WHOQOL-100 and WHOQOL-BREF ask and score, how functioning, quality of life and symptoms are read together, and who the instruments have and have not been validated for.

What the assessment interview is for and what it cannot be trusted for, what is settled before the history begins, the areas a systematic history covers, the sequence from open questions to direct ones and from safe topics to sensitive ones, the topics asked of every client, who else gives the history, and how the interview changes across cultures, languages and the lifespan.

What the mental status examination is and when it is done, its domains and the distinctions between them, which items are observed and which have to be asked, what the findings can mean, how brief mental status tests are read, how the examination changes across cultures and the lifespan, and how it is recorded.

Why risk is formulated for prevention rather than predicted in categories, the four judgements of a risk formulation, what is asked and how intention, means and warning signs are read, how self-harm and suicidal behaviour are told apart, how harm to others is assessed, how the assessment changes for adolescents, older adults and clients from other cultures, and what the response and the record contain.

What treatment goals do, how they are built with the client and the referrer, what a well-constructed goal looks like in behaviour, conditions and level, how a goal becomes subgoals with obstacles and resources, how progress is monitored from a baseline through treatment, and how goal attainment scaling scores individual goals in a standard way.

What a formulation is and what every formulation shares whatever the model, the five Ps and how a formulation is built in layers from description to maintenance to history, what it is for, how it is built with the client and tested, how it relates to diagnosis and to the treatment chosen, and how culture, power and context enter it.

What the DSM-5-TR is for and how it is organised, what it says a mental disorder is and is not, the elements of a diagnosis, what a categorical system cannot do and the alternatives, the six steps of differential diagnosis, and how culture, racism, gender and the courts bear on a diagnosis.

What decides attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and autism spectrum disorder, how they present across development, in girls and across cultures, how they are assessed with more than one informant, what the evidence supports, and the conditions that mimic them.

What decides schizophrenia and the rest of the psychotic spectrum, how the psychologist assesses a first presentation and who to refer to, what the evidence supports, and how to tell schizophrenia from mood disorders with psychotic features, substance-induced psychosis, trauma and cultural experience.

Mania against hypomania, what decides bipolar I, bipolar II, cyclothymic and other specified bipolar disorder, why bipolar disorder is so often missed in a depressed client, and how to tell it from borderline personality disorder, ADHD, disruptive mood dysregulation disorder and a medication-induced episode.

What decides major depressive disorder and persistent depressive disorder, how depression presents and is missed, the specifiers used in practice, and how to tell depression from adjustment disorder, grief, bipolar disorder, other specified depressive disorder and disruptive mood dysregulation disorder.

The four anxiety disorders the curriculum names and agoraphobia: what decides each diagnosis, when panic disorder is added to another anxiety disorder, the medical and substance causes to exclude, and how culture and age change the presentation.

What decides obsessive-compulsive disorder, how insight is rated, what keeps it going, the suicide risk it carries, how the psychologist assesses and treats it, and how it differs from anxiety, depression, obsessive-compulsive personality disorder, tics, psychosis and related disorders.

What decides posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), acute stress disorder, adjustment disorder and prolonged grief disorder, how the psychologist assesses after trauma, and what the evidence supports.

What decides somatic symptom disorder, why it is not a diagnosis of exclusion, how it differs from illness anxiety disorder, functional neurological symptom disorder and a medical condition, and how the psychologist assesses and works with health anxiety alongside the person's doctors.

What decides each of the three eating disorders, how the work starts with an ambivalent client and a medical team, the medical and suicide risks, what the evidence supports, and how to tell the disorders from each other, other specified eating disorders, avoidant/restrictive food intake disorder and depression.

What decides oppositional defiant disorder and conduct disorder, how they are assessed across settings and read in context, what the evidence supports, and how to tell them from ADHD, mood disorders, disruptive mood dysregulation disorder, adjustment disorder and trauma.

What decides a substance use disorder and its severity, how to separate a use disorder from intoxication, withdrawal and a substance-induced disorder, how the psychologist assesses use and withdrawal risk, and what the evidence supports.

What decides delirium, mild and major neurocognitive disorder, how the common causes differ, how to judge decline in someone with little schooling or English, and how to tell decline from delirium, depression, a lifelong low baseline and normal ageing.

What decides any personality disorder, and borderline and antisocial personality disorder in particular, how to tell borderline personality disorder from bipolar disorder, and how the psychologist assesses, tells and works with the person.

How assessment changes when the client is a child or adolescent: who is interviewed, how the interview fits the child's development, how families are seen, and what limited confidentiality means.

Normal aging against disorder, how testing is adapted for older people, the delirium, dementia and depression differential, and capacity evaluations.

The cognitive model, the three levels of thinking, the learning principles behind behaviour therapy, how a CBT formulation is built with the client, and how CBT is done: structured, time-limited, collaborative, with work between sessions.

The person-centred conditions, narrative therapy including with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander clients, and solution-focused brief therapy.

What the working alliance is, what it predicts, how it is made in the first sessions, and how ruptures are repaired.

The four listening responses and six influencing responses, Socratic questioning, and how to choose the right response for the moment.

Engaging clients and families from diverse backgrounds, working with interpreters, adapting a treatment without losing it, and cultural safety with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander clients.

Matching the work to the client's readiness, the sequence of treatment that produces change, structuring a session, structured problem solving, and weighing the risks and benefits of treatment.

Planned endings, endings that come early, and ending when the psychologist has to.

How psychodynamic theory explains a client's difficulties, what defences, transference and attachment styles are, and how brief dynamic therapy, interpersonal psychotherapy and the interpersonal process approach each work and whom they suit.

Systemic thinking, what a systemic psychologist does in the room, the main schools, working with couples, and who the client is when more than one person is in the room.

The spirit and processes of motivational interviewing, the OARS skills, change talk, sustain talk and discord, the traps to avoid, and where MI fits, with diverse clients, young people and the evidence.

What the main psychiatric medicines do and why clients take them, the two ideas that explain their timing and their side effects, the side effects a psychologist will see in the room and the few reactions that need a doctor the same day, how age, pregnancy and culture bear on medication, and what the psychologist does and does not do about a client's medication.

What psychoeducation covers, how the psychologist delivers and checks it, when it is used in treatment, how it is used with families, children, older and culturally diverse clients, and what the evidence supports.

Why exposure works, its forms, how the psychologist sets it up and runs a single exposure, what undermines it, its use with children and across cultures, and what the evidence supports.

Why inactivity keeps depression going, the four steps of behavioural activation, graded tasks and self-reward, what to do when activities are not done, culture, risk, and what the evidence supports.

Guided discovery, thought records, behavioural experiments, coping thoughts and work with assumptions and core beliefs, how to fit the tool to the client and the culture, and what the evidence supports.

What acceptance and commitment therapy aims for and how its six processes are used, mindfulness as an attentional skill, mindfulness-based cognitive therapy for relapse, acceptance in dialectical behaviour therapy, and what the evidence supports.

How the psychologist builds a client's own capacity to manage change, prepares for relapse and responds to lapses. It covers the evidence and work with families, older clients and clients from different cultures.

How progressive muscle relaxation, applied relaxation and breathing retraining are taught to adults, children and older clients, their cautions, and when using relaxation during exposure weakens it.

Reinforcement, punishment, extinction and shaping, the ABC functional assessment, plans built from function, the evidence, older people with dementia, families, and restrictive practices.

Structured skills programs for problem solving, assertiveness, social skills, stress, anger and parenting, how they are adapted to culture and age, the evidence, and when a skill is not what is missing.

The psychological treatments with the strongest evidence for each disorder the curriculum names, from the APS evidence review and the Australian PTSD guidelines.

How the psychologist turns diagnosis, formulation and the client's preferences into a plan: choosing the approach, ordering the steps, negotiating, gaining consent and revising the plan.

What the psychologist measures and how often, the Outcome Rating Scale, single-case designs, what to do when a client is not improving, and how a service evaluates its outcomes.

How the psychologist brings together research, clinical expertise and the client's characteristics and preferences, reads and grades evidence, generates evidence in practice, and allows for the limits of evidence.

How a practising psychologist finds and reads a trial, a meta-analysis and an outcome study, weighs the limits of evidence, judges whether a finding applies to the client, and gathers evidence about their own practice.

How the psychologist chooses between individual, couple, family, group, organisational and community work, what each mode requires, the evidence for different formats across the lifespan, and how telehealth fits.

What stays the same and what changes when psychologists work in coaching, career development, health promotion, rehabilitation and recovery-oriented services, with culture, the lifespan and the evidence for wellbeing programs.

What cultural safety requires of the psychologist, social and emotional wellbeing, adapting interventions and communication, services free of racism, community-led suicide prevention, interpreters, affirming practice and the psychologist's own position.

How trauma passes across generations, the Stolen Generations, culturally adapted trauma treatment, trauma-informed practice in the room, the psychologist's own position, and healing at the community level.

How the psychologist formulates and monitors what medication contributes, recognises side effects and warning signs, works with the prescriber, and supports a client deciding about medication.

What every report needs, how to report scores so they are understood, and what a GP, a court, an insurer, an employer, a school or a government agency needs from a psychologist's report.

The strengths and limits of face-to-face contact, telehealth, phone, email, text and letters, the ethical and legal issues with each, and how the choice fits the client.

Explaining what a psychologist does in plain language: to clients, to adolescents who did not choose to come, to people assessed for a third party, and to referrers.

Giving clear, accurate and timely feedback about assessment results, to clients and to the people around them.

What a clear, appropriate case note contains, how records are written and kept secure, and what changes when AI scribes or recordings are used.

What to pass on and what to hold back, and how to work with GPs, psychiatrists, schools and other services.

How psychologists act, consult and communicate when something unexpected happens: emergencies, disasters, harm to a client, complaints and investigations, legal requests, an impaired colleague, a client's death, absences, and conflicts with the law or an employer.

Culture, language and interpreters, cognitive and sensory needs, age, gender and sexuality, and people who are vulnerable.

Presenting work to colleagues, speaking to the media, using social media, and where education ends and advertising begins.