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Development of Clinical Psychology and Mental Health Resources in Vietnam

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Abstract

In this paper, we discuss development of the Vietnam National University graduate Clinical Psychology Program, which has the goal of training both Vietnamese researchers who will develop and evaluate culturally appropriate mental health treatments, as well as Vietnamese clinicians who will implement and help disseminate these evidence-based treatments. We first review the background situation in Vietnam regarding mental health, and its infrastructure and training needs, and discuss the process through which the decision was made to develop a graduate program in clinical psychology as the best approach to address these needs. We then review the development process for the program and its current status, and our focus on the schools as a site for service provision and mental health task shifting. Finally, we outline future goals and plans for the program, and discuss the various challenges that the program has faced and our attempts to resolve them.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Peabody School of Education MSC 552, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN, 37203, USA

    Bahr Weiss, Amie Pollack, Nam Tran & Cong Tran

  2. Vietnam National University, Hanoi, Vietnam

    Hoang-Minh Dang & My Loc Thi Nguyen

  3. The Rand Corporation, Santa Monica, CA, USA

    Victoria Ngo

  4. University of Western Australia, Perth, Australia

    David Sang

  5. Danang Psychiatric Hospital, Da Nang, Vietnam

    Trung T. Lam

  6. George Washington University, Washington, DC, USA

    Huynh-Nhu Le

  7. Vietnam Institute of Psychology, Hanoi, Vietnam

    Khanh N. Do

Authors
  1. Bahr Weiss
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  2. Hoang-Minh Dang
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  3. Victoria Ngo
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  4. Amie Pollack
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  5. David Sang
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  6. Trung T. Lam
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  7. My Loc Thi Nguyen
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  8. Huynh-Nhu Le
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  9. Nam Tran
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  10. Cong Tran
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  11. Khanh N. Do
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Bahr Weiss.

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Author Note

The work reported here and preparation of this report was supported by U.S. National Institutes of Health Fogarty International Center grants, D43-TW007769, R21-TW008435 and D43-TW005805 to the first and second authors.

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Weiss, B., Dang, HM., Ngo, V. et al. Development of Clinical Psychology and Mental Health Resources in Vietnam. Psychol Stud 56, 185–191 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12646-011-0078-x

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12646-011-0078-x

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