Psychoanalytic studies (M16)

Entry requirements

In order to undertake this course, we ask that you have a degree or other qualification of equivalent level.

We also welcome your application if you do not have a standard educational background, or if you are currently engaged in, or wish to pursue, academic study rather than related professional work.

Months of entry

September

Course content

This is the UK’s first psychoanalytic studies course with strong links in the British School of Psychoanalysis and the Tavistock model of infant and young child observation. The emphasis of this creative course is on learning from experience. You will be encouraged to use your own emotional responses and cultural knowledge, as well as the learnt theory, to help make sense of the ideas that you will be studying.

The course has a proud history of welcoming overseas students from a range of professional backgrounds, and re-extends its welcome to Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic, LGBTQI+ and other minority members whose lived experiences enrich the use of psychoanalysis as a tool to understand any object of study.

Students can achieve a Postgraduate Diploma after one year, or undertake the full two years of study (including a dissertation in the second year) and graduate from with a Master’s degree.

This is a rewarding course for anyone interested in learning about psychoanalytic ideas and their application to the arts, politics, and literature. You may do this course out of general interest, be considering future clinical training or already be a practising clinician who wants to inform your professional practice.

This course serves as an excellent intermediary pathway for those unsure about whether they would like to work with children or adults, for example on our Foundations of psychodynamic psychotherapy (D58) or Child and adolescent psychoanalytic psychotherapy (M80) courses.

We have welcomed students from a variety of backgrounds including law, medicine, the arts and journalism. Many have taken this course to gain a substantial and wide-ranging introduction to psychoanalysis and its applications.