Child and adolescent psychoanalytic psychotherapy (M80)
Discover our NHS-funded, clinical training in child and adolescent psychoanalytic psychotherapy.
Please note: Applications for this course will open on Monday 2 December 2024 and close on Monday 6 January 2025.
This internationally renowned course comprises four years of NHS clinical training in child and adolescent psychoanalytic psychotherapy.
Upon completion, you will qualify as a child and adolescent psychoanalytic psychotherapist with eligibility for membership of the Association of Child Psychotherapists (ACP), which is the registering and accrediting body for the profession. The course is validated by the University of Essex, leading to the award of a professional doctorate in child and adolescent psychoanalytic psychotherapy (DPsych).
Please note: you may see the M80 course also referred to as PCDOTP001 in communications from our application system.
About this course
Over four years, you will be employed in a full-time NHS clinical work placement and attend the Tavistock Centre every Wednesday for the course training day, where you will undertake the taught components and a research project.
The course consists of the following elements:
- individual supervision for intensive clinical work
- small group clinical supervision
- clinical seminars (assessments, beginnings, work with parents, endings, models of short-term psychotherapy and brief consultation)
- choice of specialist clinical workshops, e.g. adolescents and young adults; fostered and adopted children; early years and perinatal; trauma and early development; children who are violent, delinquent or act out sexually; narcissistic structures and eating disorders; groups and families
- experiential group relations week in year three
- theoretical lectures and reading seminars
- research teaching: methods and skills
- workshops, supervision and support for research project development, proposals and ethical approaches
- academic support and assessed academic work
- individual tutorials and departmental/clinic events.
You will also undertake supervised clinical work as a member of a clinical team, and will:
- offer long-term and short-term psychoanalytic psychotherapy to children, adolescents and young people across the age range (0-25 years old)
- gain experience and training in child psychoanalytic psychotherapy generic and specialist assessments and brief-focused therapeutic work
- gain experience with parents, carers and families of referred children
- gain experience in generic child mental health work within a multidisciplinary setting
- work with the network around a young person
- develop clinical specialism(s)
- undertake a research project.
All ACP-accredited trainings in the UK are now taught and assessed at doctoral level. On this course, the DPsych degree is awarded for completing an integrated research project at the same time as the clinical training. We think carefully about what it means to research psychoanalysis. In later years of the course, you will design and complete a project following your own emerging interests as a practitioner. Almost any aspect of the clinical work you complete as a trainee can become the focus of your thesis.
For more information, please review a selection of Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) relating to the course.
Who is this course for?
We seek to recruit a diverse group of people who have a lively interest in, and aptitude for, working psychoanalytically in mental health services for children and young people (ages from 0-25) and their families.
Course details
In order to undertake this course, we ask that you:
- have completed our Perinatal, child, adolescent and family work: a psychoanalytic observational approach (M7) course or equivalent. Completion must be to at least Postgraduate Diploma level or to Master’s level if you do not already hold a UK honours degree. For overseas qualifications, equivalence of academic level to a UK honours degree can be confirmed by NARIC. An ‘equivalent’ programme will deliver comparable learning outcomes e.g. two years of psychoanalytic baby observation, at least one year of work discussion seminars, psychoanalytic theory lectures and seminars, etc;
- have substantial experience of working with children and young people;
- are strong in personal suitability.
Personal suitability criteria include:
- both sensitivity and resilience to meet the emotional demands of the training
- sustained interest in infants, children and adolescents and the ability to engage and build relationships with them
- awareness of the impact you have on others and the impact of others on you
- respect for others’ difference, identity and individuality
- the ability to keep personal and professional boundaries
- the ability to ask for and use help
- the ability to keep thinking under pressure
- excellent written and spoken communications skills.
Further requirements: personal psychotherapy and psychoanalysis
Personal psychoanalysis (usually four or five sessions per week) is an essential component of the child and adolescent psychotherapy training. It is at the heart of supporting your personal and professional development and strongly contributes towards your continuing development after training.
You are strongly encouraged to begin personal psychoanalytic psychotherapy or psychoanalysis (for six months or one year) before you apply to the training as this is an important developmental opportunity. In some circumstances this might be in the form of once or twice weekly therapy and might be accessed remotely through online technologies.
Personal tutors and/or potential training schools will be able to think with you about your options including advice about suitably accredited analysts and psychotherapists and help for people with limited funds to access some financial support.
We are committed to widening access to the training and building on the diversity of our training groups. We understand that some applicants will not have the opportunity to start personal therapy, for financial, geographical and other reasons, and we do not want this to be a barrier to making an application.
If you have not started in personal therapy, then you should, as a minimum, have an understanding about the importance of personal psychoanalysis for undertaking psychoanalytic work. This includes thinking about yourself and your own readiness for what this might entail, in terms of the exploration of your own conscious and unconscious thoughts and feelings.
This can feel quite challenging; thinking about managing your own anxiety or other responses is often a part of the process for all applicants. It is a challenging part of psychoanalytic working as you have to think about and manage your own responses and anxieties. If needed, we encourage you to contact us, so we can help with thinking about this.
We will need to assess candidates’ suitability for training, on the basis that you can demonstrate that you have the requirements for clinical training, which includes being ready to take part in and learn from personal psychoanalysis. This will be explored as part of the recruitment and selection process for new trainees.
If you are accepted, you need to be in a position to start your personal analysis at the beginning of your training (the start of the autumn term at latest) or you will not be able to take up your place.
There is an accredited list of analysts who are experienced at working with our trainees. We have a separate process to help identify a suitable analytic vacancy. This can take several months, so it is important to contact us early on in relation to starting before training or to be ready to start at the beginning of the course.
Most places for this course are funded through a national scheme aimed at training the NHS workforce. If you are successful in your application, you will be directed to apply for training posts, one of which you must secure before taking up your place.
If you meet entry criteria for the course but are a non-UK resident and therefore ineligible for NHS funding, or you have not secured a funded place, you may be considered on a self-funded basis. Places for self-funded students are limited and considered on a case-by-case basis. Course fees for self-funded and international students for 2024/25 will be £22,000 per year.
There is some limited bursary and loan support offered by charitable Trust funds which trainees can apply for.
Please note that course fees are subject to an annual uplift of 3% or the Consumer Price Inflation as at 1 September, whichever is the greater. At its discretion, the Trust may determine a figure between these two rates.
Assessment
Practice-based learning is ongoing throughout the programme with defined progress points at the end of each year, and joint planning between you, your placement supervisor and your tutor for the next year’s requirements.
This ensures that the required professional competencies can be met by the end of the programme so that you will be eligible for full membership of the ACP. There are also academic submissions each year, building progressively so that by the end of the course you will be ready to submit a substantial portfolio of clinical and research work, which will be assessed by viva.
Attendance
This course is full time, between your clinical work in placement and time for training. A full day on Wednesdays is spent at the Tavistock Centre in North West London.
Given that training posts are fully funded by the NHS, the expectation by the NHS as the funding body, the ACP as the accrediting body and the training schools, is that post-qualification, child and adolescent psychoanalytic psychotherapists would work in the public services: the NHS or charity or voluntary sectors.
Registration with the ACP is necessary for working in the NHS, charity or voluntary sectors post-qualification. Ongoing clinical supervision post-qualification is required by the ACP.
Application deadlines
There are a number of important application deadlines associated with our postgraduate courses, however we encourage you to apply as early as possible, as spaces on our courses are limited and can be competitive.
Applications for this course are expected to close on Monday 6 January 2025.
Why study with us?
This course will provide you with the opportunity to study at one of the world’s leading providers of child and adolescent psychoanalytic psychotherapy training. It will help you gain highly specialised skills in clinical work and research with children, adolescents and their families, including those who have experienced trauma, abuse, social disadvantage or discrimination.
It will also allow you to study within a supportive and diverse peer group and environment, with a long-established tradition of excellence in training child psychotherapists and other disciplines.
This course will equip you with research knowledge, skills and competencies relevant to child psychotherapists working in the NHS and other settings, and enable you to contribute to the wider development of research in the clinical discipline and professional field.
Testimonials
Course facilitators
Validations and accreditations
This course is validated by the University of Essex.
This course is accredited by the Association of Child Psychotherapists.
Register your interest
Applications are now closed. Register your interest and be the first to hear when this course reopens.
Recommended courses
Explore courses to study beforehand
- Master’sEligible for Student Visa
Perinatal, child, adolescent and family work: a psychoanalytic observational approach (M7, daytime)