ABPP Clinical Health Psychology

Two stages. First, a written practice sample and professional statement describing your clinical work, which the board reviews. If accepted, you sit an oral examination with a panel of board-certified health psychologists who question you on your sample, your professional statement, and the specialty's knowledge domains. Confirm current sequencing and materials with ABPP.

Structure and timing are set by the specialty board and can change, so check the official ABPP Clinical Health Psychology board page for the current format rather than relying on secondhand accounts. In general, expect a panel rather than a single examiner, and expect questions to move between your submitted cases and broader specialty knowledge.

The difficulty is not trivia recall - it is defending your clinical reasoning under questioning. Candidates who struggle usually cannot connect their interventions to evidence, cannot explain differential decisions, or become defensive when challenged. Candidates who do well speak fluently about their own cases, acknowledge uncertainty, and know the literature behind their choices.

Weak practice samples and vague professional statements. If your written materials do not demonstrate substantive health psychology work - assessment, intervention, consultation in medical settings - the oral becomes an uphill defense. A second common failure is treating the oral as a knowledge quiz rather than a conversation about judgment.

ABPP does have provisions for re-examination, but the specific conditions, waiting periods, and fees are set by the board and change over time. Look up the current retake policy on the official ABPP site before you plan. Do not budget based on numbers you heard from a colleague who sat the exam years ago.

Start with your own practice sample - it drives the oral. Then map your cases onto the domain list and find the domains where your experience is thin (often diversity, program evaluation, or ethics in medical contexts). Read in those areas last, not first; breadth without a strong sample does not help.

You should know the instruments you actually use well - their psychometric properties, limits, and appropriate populations - and be able to justify them. You are not expected to recite cutoffs for measures you never administer. Examiners tend to probe depth on your own tools rather than breadth across all of them.

Fees and examination windows are published by ABPP and are updated periodically, so this page does not state them. Check the official ABPP website for the current fee schedule and application deadlines. Application review timelines also vary, so plan well ahead of any deadline that matters to you professionally.

No. These are original study questions written to help you rehearse the specialty's content and reasoning style. They are not actual exam items, are not drawn from any commercial question bank, and are not endorsed by ABPP. Use them as practice, then verify all factual and procedural claims against primary sources.