Almost everyone preparing for the National Psychology Exam goes looking for the reading list early on. It is usually the first thing people ask about — and it is also where a great deal of preparation quietly goes wrong.
The list below gathers all 46 resources in one place, grouped by the curriculum domains they support. I have published it here because it is otherwise scattered across documents and hard to hold in your head, and because seeing the whole thing at once makes the next decision much easier: what to actually read.
A word of caution before you start buying textbooks. You do not need to read all of these, and some you do not need to open at all.
Read the NPE Curriculum first and let it tell you where your time is best spent. I have written more about this in 4 common NPE preparation mistakes, where over-relying on this very list is mistake number one.
All curriculum domains
5 resources-
1
Australian Indigenous Psychology Education Project (AIPEP)
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2
A systematic review and meta-analysis of psychological interventions to improve mental wellbeing
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3
A multidisciplinary handbook of child and adolescent mental health for front-line professionals
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4
International Declaration of Core Competences in Professional Psychology
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5
Cultural Safety in Trauma-Informed Practice from a First Nations Perspective: Billabongs of Knowledge
Ethics and Communication
13 resources-
6
APA Publication Manual of the APA (7th Ed.)
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7
APS Code of Ethics
Superseded. The Psychology Board of Australia’s Code of Conduct for Psychologists, released in December 2025, now applies.
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8
APS Ethical Guidelines
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9
Ethical practice in applied psychology
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10
Elder abuse
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11
Fit to practice: Everything you wanted to know about starting your own psychology practice in Australia but were afraid to ask
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12
Health Practitioner Regulation National Law Act 2009
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13
Integrating human service law, ethics and practice (6th Ed.)
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14
Ethics and professional practice for psychologists (2nd ed.)
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15
Essentials of assessment report writing (2nd Ed.)
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16
Code of Conduct for Psychologists
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17
Psychology Board of Australia (PsyBA) Standards and Guidelines
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18
Victims of Crime
Assessment and Intervention
28 resources-
19
DSM-5-TR
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20
APS Practice Guide for Use of Psychological Tests and Instruments
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21
The Reliability and Validity of the Outcome Rating Scale: A replication study of a brief clinical measure
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22
Examining the dimensionality, internal consistency, and invariance of the DASS
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23
Applied behavior analysis (3rd Ed.)
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24
Interviewing and change strategies for helpers: Fundamental skills and cognitive behavioral interventions (6th Ed.)
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25
Percentile norms and accompanying interval estimates from an Australian general adult population sample for self-report mood scales (BAI, BDI, CRSD, CES-D, DASS, DASS-21, STAI-X, STAI-Y, SRDS, and SRAS)
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26
The art and science of brief psychotherapies: A practitioner’s guide
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27
Preventing suicides of First Nations people
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28
Essentials of WISC-V assessment
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29
Handbook of psychological assessment (6th ed.)
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30
K-10 information
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31
Treatment plans and interventions for depression and anxiety disorders (2nd Ed.)
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32
Essentials of WAIS-IV assessment
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33
Validity of the SDQ for Screening and Diagnosis in WA Adolescents
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34
Mental Status Exam - Principles of the MSE
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35
Essentials of PAI Assessment
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36
Psychotherapy - An Australian Perspective
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37
Patient Health Questionnaire (PHQ-9) Screeners
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38
Prevention-oriented risk formulation: Update and Expansion
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39
K10 and K6 Scales
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40
Raising Children Network
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41
National Voice for Our Children
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42
Understanding research in clinical and counseling psychology (2nd Ed.)
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43
Interpersonal process in therapy: An integrative model
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44
Normative data for the self-reported and parent-reported SDQ for ages 12-17
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45
Psychopharmacology: Practice and contexts
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46
Mental disorders in older adults: Fundamentals of assessment and treatment
The Psychology Board of Australia updates the curriculum from time to time, so treat the current curriculum document as the authoritative source and this page as a working index. If you spot something out of date here, let me know and I will correct it.
If you would like to work through these resources alongside other provisional psychologists rather than on your own, there is a National Psychology Exam Study Group where we discuss them, and a growing set of free tools — study games, practice questions, a study planner, and summaries — at the NPE Study App.
Know which readings matter, and why.
Seven weeks of live cohort sessions covering all four NPE domains — with the curriculum unpacked, the essential readings drawn out, and over 400 practice questions worked through together.