MA Psychodynamic Counselling and Psychotherapy
(3 year)
Do you want to train as a psychodynamic counsellor? Would you like to learn how to work therapeutically in depth with either adults or children/adolescents?
This course offers a professional qualification to work as a counsellor. You gain thorough theoretical and practical training, including a supervised placement, enabling you to qualify and practise as a member of the British Association of Psychotherapy and Counselling.
This course provides a route to a counselling career for graduates from psychology, sociology or many other related degrees as well as for established professionals, such as teachers, social workers, nurses and care workers.
In the first year you learn about psychodynamic theory and its applications and develop the skills you will need in practice. In the second year, you take up a placement as trainee counsellor to develop your proficiency and confidence as a practitioner. You will be placed in an agency such as a school, counselling organisation or other support service. A requirement of this course is that you are in personal therapy or counselling on a weekly basis and you will need weekly supervision.
If you are an EU or EEA national, you will only be able to study a part-time course if you hold settled status in the UK. If you are a non-EEA, and non-UK national, you will only be able to study a part-time course if you hold a UK immigration permission which allows part-time study. If you will need a student visa to study in the UK then you will not be able to study part-time.
Professional accreditation
Accredited by the British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy (BACP).
- A clinical training programme for professionals working either with adults or children and adolescents
- Gain practical experience through placements in schools or local agencies
- Acquire a professional qualification to work therapeutically with adults or children and adolescents
Our expert staff
Our Department of Psychosocial and Psychoanalytic Studies is internationally recognised as one of the leading departments for work that focuses on the role of the unconscious mind in mental health, as well as in culture and society generally. Our research and teaching is deeply grounded in knowledge deriving from clinical practice, to which our highest standards of academic thinking are then applied.
Being located within a leading university for the study of social sciences means you are surrounded by strong departments that fully support and enhance our work. This allows you to gain the opportunity to work with and be taught by senior clinicians and world-class scholars in their fields.
Specialist facilities
If you are studying within our Department of Psychosocial and Psychoanalytic Studies, you will have access to our extensive facilities to aid your learning and research. In particular, our Albert Sloman Library is well stocked with books, journals, electronic resources and major archives relevant to our work and, in addition, we have our own library of specialist books and journals.
We hold free evening Open Seminars on topics relevant to psychoanalysis which are open to students, staff and members of the public.
Your future
Graduates from our Graduate Diploma Psychodynamic Counselling and Psychotherapy who do not continue in the training may well already be professionals, clinical and non-clinical, and will return to their existing fields, either in jobs or further training, and use their learning from the course to deepen their understanding of their work.
Graduates from our MA Psychodynamic Counselling and Psychotherapy are qualified counsellors who take up positions in many agencies providing counselling to young people. Graduates from our department go on to a number of different destinations, including further study and training in psychoanalysis, Jungian analysis, or psychoanalytic psychotherapy.
Recent MA Psychodynamic Counselling and Psychotherapy graduate, Kate Beckwith, has set up her own private practice. She is the founder of Elle's Garden, an outdoor, nature-based therapeutic practice for infants, children and young people, which also incorporates parent and family work. Based just outside Colchester, it is a therapeutic practice with a difference – and the only one of its kind in the country. Located in a private setting in natural woodland, the approach utilises the outdoors, nature, animals, art, and play. Read more about Kate's Essex experience and how it has enriched her career.
At Essex we pride ourselves on being a welcoming and inclusive student community. We offer a wide range of support to individuals and groups of student members who may have specific requirements, interests or responsibilities.
The University makes every effort to ensure that this information on its programme specification is accurate and up-to-date. Exceptionally it can be necessary to make changes, for example to courses, facilities or fees. Examples of such reasons might include, but are not limited to: strikes, other industrial action, staff illness, severe weather, fire, civil commotion, riot, invasion, terrorist attack or threat of terrorist attack (whether declared or not), natural disaster, restrictions imposed by government or public authorities, epidemic or pandemic disease, failure of public utilities or transport systems or the withdrawal/reduction of funding. Changes to courses may for example consist of variations to the content and method of delivery of programmes, courses and other services, to discontinue programmes, courses and other services and to merge or combine programmes or courses. The University will endeavour to keep such changes to a minimum, and will also keep students informed appropriately by updating our programme specifications. The University would inform and engage with you if your course was to be discontinued, and would provide you with options, where appropriate, in line with our Compensation and Refund Policy.
The full Procedures, Rules and Regulations of the University governing how it operates are set out in the Charter, Statutes and Ordinances and in the University Regulations, Policy and Procedures.
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