About this course

This course offers a foundation in developing a clinical understanding of direct experience with service users. It provides a theoretical framework for students to develop their knowledge of and capacity to apply psychoanalytic concepts in their work within mental health care.

This course aims to:

• extend students’ experience of working directly with clients who are suffering from mental illness or who are vulnerable to emotional distress – whether in mental health care settings or in a range of other professional or voluntary contexts, including befriending services, housing support, youth offending, social work, bereavement counselling and NHS services
• provide those already working in mental health with the opportunity to develop a new theoretical framework to think about their work and the way they engage with it
• support those interested in undertaking further psychotherapy training with the time and space to prepare emotionally and academically for the intensity of clinical therapeutic trainings
• deepen understanding of how psychoanalytic concepts might look and feel when encountered in one-to-one work with clients and patients
• explore the impact of equality, diversity and inclusion issues on us as individuals and on organisations, as well as how this relates to our practice, and to our understanding and application of psychoanalytic theory
• build an in-depth understanding of human development, the impact of developmental and emotional difficulties in the context of social, economic and cultural circumstances, and the relevance of this to mental health work
• consider psychodynamic theory within the context of a live working group, through a range of experiential learning opportunities
• develop the capacity for more meaningful, accurate risk assessment
• develop an appreciation of the therapeutic use of self in clinical practice
• reflect on the importance of conscious and unconscious communications in the workplace
• develop awareness of professional roles, relationships and clinical dilemmas and how to observe and understand them in practice.

Through a combination of applied theory seminars and work discussion groups you will develop an understanding of the underlying dynamics present in the complexities of the healthcare environment.

This course will improve your understanding of clinical and institutional dynamics, including complicated dynamics around experiences of sameness and difference which are at play within these processes.

At the heart of the course is the work discussion group which enables you to gain an understanding of the emotional challenges inherent in mental health work. This provides a valuable development opportunity for those with little clinical experience and offers a refreshing and stimulating approach for experienced mental health workers.

The seminars offer a synthesis of theoretical seminars with work discussion which enables students to reflect on how theory can allow for a deeper understanding of their work within mental health services.

This deeper understanding can improve patient care, maintain professional roles and relationships, improve risk assessment and lead to a better understanding of our patient’s experience as well as our own.

Tutorials are offered throughout the course, enabling you to consider your work in depth and to discuss your professional development, and plans for further training, where appropriate.