Would you like to build on your clinical training by learning about research methods and then applying this to a topic of your choice? If so, you can study at the Department of Psychosocial and Psychoanalytic studies at the University of Essex, where we have an established tradition of combining clinical thinking with research expertise.

This allows you to further your own professional development, explore the area of greatest interest to you and make an original contribution to the development of your profession Our professional doctorates constitute the academic and research component, building on what you have already studied and achieved in your professional Psychotherapy training.

The Department of Psychosocial and Psychoanalytic Studies is uniquely positioned to offer a professional doctorate of this kind. The department has a long and rich history of bringing clinicians and researchers from a wide range of orientations into fruitful collaboration and has a thriving research community. On this programme you will have access, alongside the specific course content, to all elements of the department’s provision, bringing you into contact with leading practitioners and researchers in your field as well as an exciting group of both staff and student researchers in related areas.

This degree constitutes the academic and research top-up for graduates with a full training in Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy

There are few comparable doctorates available. A few trainings are now doctoral programmes, or have doctorates available to trainees, but there are few routes available for those who trained in the past, and in many current trainings the doctoral top-up does not exist. This course enables those who have already completed a full relevant training to add the academic and research component to gain a doctorate and to contribute to the field.

The course aims to provide you with relevant knowledge and skills so that you can conduct a rigorous piece of original research in your field. This could be theoretical/literature-based or empirical, employing qualitative or quantitative methodologies.

The aim of the taught first year is to enable you, a qualified psychotherapist, to make the transition from practitioner to researcher, to decide on your research question, design, and methodology and to prepare for your empirical project. Assignments in the first year are all directly connected to and will provide elements of the final thesis.

In years 2 and 3 you will be supported in supervision and workshops in conducting your individual doctoral research project.