Program Overview

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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? The BA course is the third year of the programme, consolidating your knowledge and expertise from the Foundation Degree and empowering you to take a more significant role in your agencies. We combine theoretical seminars, practical workshops, work-place learning, and an opportunity to focus on a theme that inspires you most. Your first term concentrates on developing therapeutic techniques in working individually with children and adults, whilst your second involves in-depth study of the dynamics of organisations. This includes theory, workshop and observational elements. In the summer term you select either a module on supervision and mentoring, enabling you to foster the skills and development of others in your agency; or a module on further developing your counselling skills. Throughout the year, you will also be able to study an area of personal interest, engaging your curiosity under the expert guidance of our staff.

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. Professor Sue Kegerreis is both an adult and child and adolescent psychotherapist. Sue has published numerous journal papers and chapters including her book Psychodynamic Counselling with Children and Adolescents: An Introduction in 2010. Sue has a long career developing and teaching courses applying psychodynamic approaches to both clinical and non-clinical settings, and she is also a consultant offering clinical supervision. 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. “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.