Program Overview

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This is an online version of our FDA Therapeutic Communication and Therapeutic Organisations. This course is taught through distance learning meaning the entire two years of the course is taught online with no face-to-face, in-person teaching. You will graduate with the same qualification as our campus based FDA, the only difference being you will attend all teaching virtually and not on campus. Interested in the course but want to study on campus? Click here . 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. After finishing this Foundation Degree, you have the opportunity to take a further one year course on campus 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). Why we're great.

• 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.
• 88% of our Department of Psychosocial and Psychoanalytic Studies graduates are in employment or further study (Graduate Outcomes 2022)

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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.

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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.

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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. 88% of our Department of Psychosocial and Psychoanalytic Studies graduates are in employment or further study (Graduate Outcomes 2022). 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. * Non-specialist higher education institutions with a survey population of at least 500. “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.