FdA Therapeutic Communication and Therapeutic Organisations
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How can you support the people who need your service most effectively?
How can you work more collaboratively with your colleagues?
What counts as therapeutic support for children, young people, or older adults?
Our Foundation Degree, comprising of one afternoon of teaching a week, offers a theoretical understanding and the practical tools for emotionally grounded therapeutic work with children, adolescents, and adults, whatever your role.
Using a psychodynamic framework, the course will help you develop a thorough understanding of the human processes within and around the people who use your service and the people who are trying to help them. We also equip you with an awareness of the wider dimension of organisational dynamics. Put together, these both will contribute to your development as an effective and perceptive practitioner.
You study:
- Psychodynamic theory
- Child and adult development
- Issues of trauma and violence
- The dynamics of therapeutic interventions in organisations
You also have the opportunity to develop your insight as a reflective thinker through reflective observation workshops.
We connect the workshops on campus with elements of work-place learning, to ensure that you can make the connection between the course and your practice.
After finishing this Foundation Degree, you are able to take a further one year course to gain a BA Honours Degree. The course is accredited by APPCIOS (The Association of Psychodynamic Practice and Counselling in Organisational Settings).
Professional accreditation
Accredited by the Association for Psychodynamic Practice and Counselling in Organisational Settings (APPCIOS).
- Our course tutors are experienced practitioners, who have worked with children and adults facing challenging circumstances, over many years.
- The course gives you the concepts, tools and support to develop your therapeutic work, and at the same time, you can continue progressing with your career.
- Build your reputation and profile in existing roles in social work, healthcare, mental health, community work and education.
Our expert staff
What sets our teaching team apart is that each one blends clinical experience and expertise in their field with the academic rigour for which the Department of Psychosocial and Psychoanalytic Studies has such a reputation. You will be taught by lecturers who have years of experience working directly with troubled individuals and groups in specialist settings. This means they can draw upon not only the enduring academic tradition and the latest research in the field of psychoanalytic studies but also upon years of clinical experience as teachers, psychotherapists, and therapeutic community practitioners.
Mr Chris Tanner, Fd.A Course Director, brings many years of experience in special education and therapeutic communities, having held a number of leaderships and directorships roles in such organisations. He also works as an organisational consultant working across diverse sectors in the UK. He is a Specialist Member of the Ministry of Justice Health, Education and Social Care Tribunal. He has postgraduate qualifications in special education, psychoanalytic studies, and organisational consultancy.
Mrs Arianna Pulsoni is a child and adolescent psychoanalytic psychotherapist. Arianna has worked in NHS and in schools. She is the lead on the wellbeing and counselling service in an international school. She has also worked with mother and baby refugees and she is doing a research on intergenerational family difficulties and parent work at the Tavistock Clinic. Arianna also works as a clinical supervisor and specialist consultant.
Dr Chris Nicholson has some 15 years experience working in residential childcare and therapeutic communities. His PhD thesis concerned the effects of war trauma upon the literary works of Robert Graves. He is the primary author and editor of Children and Adolescents in Trauma: Creative Therapeutic Approaches published in 2010. Chris sits on the Advisory Board for Children and Young People at the Royal College of Psychiatrists' Therapeutic Communities section. He speaks at both national and international conferences and teaches here as well as in Greece.
Specialist facilities
You will experience a lively, informal environment with many possibilities to pursue your own interests:
- You will have access to the Albert Sloman Library, which houses a strong collection of books, journals, electronic resources and major archives
- The Department has its own dedicated library of specialist texts which inform and influence our research
- Free evening Open Seminars on topics relevant to psychoanalysis which are open to students, staff and members of the public.
Your future
In undertaking this course you'll study a range of psychoanalytic concepts - applying them to individuals, relationships and organisations, which will provide you with a unique perspective of why we are the way we are, on understanding others and knowing how to relate to them, which will make you suited for further clinical training, postgraduate study in different fields, or employment.
Key areas of employment for people with these skills include marketing, advertising, human resources, management, the media, care work, teaching or health care. Our recent graduates have gone on to work in a wide range of careers, including:
- Psychoanalytic therapy
- Clinical psychology
- NHS Mental Health work
- Management Consultancy
- Country Director (Afghanistan) with the Danish Refugee Council
- Therapeutic Consultancy
We also work with the University's Student Development Team to help you find out about further work experience, internships, placements, and voluntary opportunities.
“I never expected to develop such enthusiasm and passion for my chosen subject. I have acquired and built on a range of different skills, and by the end of my first year I had obtained paid employment within two separate organisations: a community interest company in Essex and a registered charity in Suffolk.”
David Bloomfield, FdA Therapeutic Communication and Therapeutic Organisation.
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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