• Year of Study: Year One
• FHEQ Level: Level 8
• Credit Weighting: 60 credits
• Module Status: Core

Module Aims

• To bring together trainees’ learning from the early stages of clinical work with patients together with core concepts from psychoanalytic theory.
• To integrate learning from the Psychoanalytic Observation Studies course and the teaching of psychoanalytic theory in the first year with the beginning of clinical work.
• To advance trainees towards a capacity for critical reflection on the clinical material.
• For the trainee to take up full membership of the multi-disciplinary team in the role of trainee child and adolescent psychotherapist.
• To establish clinical work under supervision, and to begin to understand the psychoanalytic processes underpinning clinical work.
• To establish the model of learning from experience, including learning through supervision.

Module Assessment

Students are required to produce a portfolio of work, drawing on their clinical and professional practice in their training post and conceptual knowledge and skills learned during the first year of training. The portfolio will include two written assignments. The ‘Clinical Conceptualisation’ assignment comprises two 3,000 word session reports, two 250-word file summaries, and a 3,000-word transference commentary. The ‘Practice Based Learning’ assignment comprises a 1,500-word written task, reflecting on the experience of embarking on the clinical training programme. Students are also required to attend two progress review meetings, and submit associated documentation.

• Year of Study: Year One
• FHEQ Level: Level 8
• Credit Weighting: 30 credits
• Module Status: Core

Module Aims

• To enable trainees to acquire systematic knowledge and detailed understanding of key theoretical paradigms and techniques for research and advanced academic enquiry in child psychotherapy, comprising concepts, methodologies, designs, and methods.
• To enable trainees to develop the capacity to evaluate research critically within the context of child psychotherapy in the NHS.
• To enable trainees to undertake an advanced literature search.
• To enable trainees to gain knowledge of key contemporary empirical child psychotherapy research, including systematic reviews and meta-analyses.
• To enable trainees to learn about and practise qualitative data analysis.

Module Assessment

The assessment for this module comprises:

a 5,000-word critical bibliography demonstrating the capacity to search for and review 5-6 empirical child mental health research papers on a defined topic, including the search strategy employed, brief critical evaluations of the selected papers, and brief conclusions;

a 3,000-word qualitative analysis of a child, demonstrating the capacity to apply one of the qualitative data analysis techniques taught on the module, and to reflect on and make informed judgements about, complex issues in the absence of complete data.

• Year of Study: Year Two
• FHEQ Level: Level 8
• Credit Weighting: 60 credits
• Module Status: Core

Module Aims

• To enable trainees to pursue an area of interest and to develop a clinical specialism.
• To acquaint trainees with relevant literature and clinical research in a specialist area of practice.
• To develop trainees’ skills in working with a particular patient population.
• To further trainees’ knowledge of the diverse roles within professional networks and to further their understanding of statutory frameworks.
• To allow trainees to increase the range of cases they are working with and, with the help of the supervisor, ensure they are working with a balance of ages, genders, backgrounds and presenting problems. Trainees may gain experience in working with people from a wide range of ethnicities/heritages, including when necessary, working with translators.
• To develop trainees’ capacity to work with complexity, and develop their awareness of the impact of differences and trauma on the psychosocial and internal worlds of the young people and families they work with.
• To support trainees to progress in their capacity to undertake intensive casework, estbalishing their capacity to use supervision, including intensive case supervision.
• To support trainees to undertake an increased range of assessments, and begin therapeutic work with parents and other specialist work.
• To support trainees in becoming more familiar with working with colleagues from different professional backgrounds, and undertaking co-working of cases, discussing cases from a psychoanalytic perspective in their multi-disciplinary team meetings.

Module Assessment

Students are required to produce a portfolio of work, drawing on their clinical and professional practice in their training post and conceptual knowledge and skills learned during the first year of training. The portfolio will include two written assignments. The ‘Clinical Conceptualisation’ assignment comprises a 6,000-word account of clinical work linked to an area of specialist clinical practice. The ‘Practice Based Learning’ assignment comprises a 1,500-word written task, reflecting on the experience of becoming fully engaged in long term casework, particularly the intensive training cases and associated individual supervisions, and work with parents/carers. Students are also required to attend two progress review meetings, and submit associated documentation.

• Year of Study: Year Two
• FHEQ Level: Level 8
• Credit Weighting: 30 credits
• Module Status: Core

Module Aims

• To develop trainees’ ability to conceptualise, design, and undertake ethically sound small-scale quantitative and qualitative data collection and analysis projects within the context of child psychotherapy in the NHS.

Module Assessment

Students are required to submit a 4,000-word research dissertation project proposal, demonstrating the capacity to conceptualise and design a proposal with appropriate scope, complexity, and sophistication. Students must also complete an ethical application document and all associated documents appropriate to the project.

• Year of Study: Year Three
• FHEQ Level: Level 8
• Credit Weighting: 90 credits
• Module Status: Core

Module Aims

• To develop the capacity to formulate psychoanalytic ideas and hypotheses in relation to the assessment of children and adolescents so as to make informed decisions about treatment.
• To help trainees to understand the critical differences between a report of an assessment for psychotherapy and a state of mind assessment.
• To teach trainees how to formulate psychoanalytic ideas and hypotheses in relation to clinical assessments and treatment and to translate these into clear, jargon-free communication in the best interests of their patients.
• To support trainees to have have an established caseload of weekly and intensive 3 times weekly psychotherapy cases with children and young people of different ages, genders and presenting problems, family work and therapeutic parent work.
• To support trainees in making consistent progress in their capacity to understand their patients’ communications and in their ability to respond to patients appropriately, based on a sound understanding of psychoanalytic concepts and the impact of trauma, difference and diversity such as socio-economic, ethnicity, sexuality, disability and gender on the work.
• To enable trainees to write clearly, succinctly and in a style appropriate to a range of tasks, in language that is meaningful and accessible to other professionals, young people, families and carers.
• To help trainees to develop skills in summarising from a large amount of clinical experience/data. This is with the aim of capturing the significant and key clinical facts that are relevant to the context of the report.
• To develop trainees’ ability to make recommendations which are firmly based on clinical evidence and realistic, and to explain the underpinning rationale for each recommendation.
• To acquaint trainees with the tasks and structures of key external agencies and to locate the role of the child psychotherapist in complex professional networks.
• To support trainees to undertake therapeutic parent work with a parent or parental couple whose child or adolescent may or may not be in child psychotherapy treatment.
• To support trainees to be full active members of their multi-disciplinary teams, contributing to all areas of team development, and developing their clinical practice in an area of specialist interest, usually linked to their research project.
• To support trainees to engage in joint-thinking with their service supervisors in relation to case management. There is joint reflection and discussion about the criteria for ending cases, e.g. when sufficient change has taken place in the patient.
• To encourage trainees to apply learning from the Group Relations Conference to develop their understanding of power and authority in team and inter agency dynamics, and the significance of race and gender as well as other aspects of difference, in groups and organisations. Trainees will experience and learn about this in relation to their own functioning.
• To develop trainees’ experience of communicating in writing with professionals in the multi-agency network on complex matters.

Module Assessment

Students are required to produce a portfolio of work, drawing on their clinical and professional practice in their training post and conceptual knowledge and skills learned during the first year of training. The portfolio will include two written assignments. The ‘Clinical Conceptualisation’ assignment comprises 3-5 anonymised reports or significant letters written for external agencies, demonstrating awareness of role and task, totalling 6,000 words. The ‘Practice Based Learning’ assignment comprises a 1,500-word written task, reflecting on the experience of being an established member of a clinical team in placement and on beginning to develop areas of particular interest or clinical specialism. Students are also required to attend two progress review meetings, and submit associated documentation, and to attend a Group Relations Conference.

• Year of Study: Year Four
• FHEQ Level: Level 8
• Credit Weighting: 90 Credits
• Module Status: Core

Module Aims

• To enable trainees to write a paper which demonstrates their clinical knowledge, skills and understanding, as well as their grasp of psychoanalytic theory and practice and relevant research. The paper gathers together key elements the trainee’s learning from all strands of the course.
• To develop the clinical competencies required to become fully qualified child and adolescent psychotherapists registered as full members of the Association of Child Psychotherapists.
• To begin to develop trainees’ teaching and supervision skills, and where possible to gain experience in the supervision of a practitioner or trainee from another professional discipline wishing to develop their understanding of how psychoanalytic ideas can enhance their practice.

Module Assessment

Students are required to produce a portfolio of work, drawing on their clinical and professional practice in their training post and conceptual knowledge and skills learned during the first year of training. The portfolio will include two written assignments. The ‘Clinical Conceptualisation’ assignment comprises an 11,000-word clinical case study. The ‘Practice Based Learning’ assignment comprises a 3,000-word written task, reflecting on the training programme in its entirety and thinking ahead to future plans and ambitions. Students are also required to attend two progress review meetings, and submit associated documentation.

• Year of Study: Years 2 – 4
• FHEQ Level: Level 8
• Credit Weighting: 180 credits
• Module Status: Core

Module Aims

• To develop the capacity to conceptualise and design a doctoral project that makes a small, but original, contribution to the literature and evidence base on psychoanalytic psychotherapy.
• To develop the capacity to assess issues of feasibility and scope in the design of their research project and as they arise in the course of the work.
• To implement their research study within the context of child psychotherapy in the NHS, so as to be able to continue to undertake these activities at an advanced level, contributing substantially to the development of new techniques, ideas, or approaches.

Module Assessment

Students must complete a Research Project comprising a 24-28,000-word Research Thesis. This may be presented either as a single dissertation or as 3 linked articles of 6-8,000 words each plus appropriate linking passages.