DIPLOMA IN COMMUNITY AND PSYCHOTHERAPY
The Philadelphia Association Diploma in Community and Psychotherapy is a one-year practice-oriented block course, which offers students the opportunity to develop therapeutic work in community settings. Like the Experiential Course, the Diploma is based on the idea that therapy is an important form of social engagement at a time when community cohesion is under attack.
OVERVIEW
One-to-one psychotherapy is very valuable in helping people come to terms with painful experiences and emotions. But it is inevitably removed from a social context. The two people meeting together during a psychotherapy session build a secure space that is to some degree sealed off from the world and out of time. The approach of the Philadelphia Association has, though, always combined one-to-one therapy with a commitment to working within communities, especially the households which the PA has run for more than fifty years. Beginning at Kingsley Hall, the PA households were set up in order to explore communal solutions to personal crises, to work through trouble and conflict in a collective manner. This is still the aim and the hope, and for some people it succeeds where nothing else does. That this can be so demonstrates the value and healing potential of group dialogue.
In the current economic and political climate of austerity, which is ushering in the model of computerised quick-fix therapy, community solutions have all but disappeared. Day centres, youth clubs, libraries and other shared spaces have closed down. What is left is a fragmented and afflicted society in what feels like a hostile environment.
The aim of this new course is to develop the idea of community through therapeutic practice. Such work needs resilience and practicality as well as compassion and hope, but it also needs a rigorous and affordable framework of study which this new course offers.
The Diploma course is designed to provide both continuing professional development and pathways into community engagement.
REQUIREMENTS
This is a practice-oriented course. It is expected that students will fall into one of the following categories:
(a) People who have completed the PA Introductory Course or Experiential Course.
(b) Qualified therapists who wish to develop community perspectives and insights,
(c) Healthcare, charity and other workers in community settings who wish to explore psychotherapeutic ideas and approaches,
(d) Activists and community organisers.
It is possible to attend the course informally, without a qualification at the end of it, but in order to obtain the Diploma, students need to meet the following requirements:
(a) To undertake group or community work for at least three months on a regular basis during the course period. A main component of the Diploma course is work reflection i.e. discussing ongoing work with other course members and seminar leaders during the six course weekends Some students will already be undertaking appropriate community work, in which case the course is an opportunity to present work and gain feedback. Other students can use the course to devise and set up a community group, take the advantage of placement opportunities, the community room at Marty’s Yard and a range of advice provided by experienced community practitioners as part of the course. The Diploma course is designed to provide both continuing professional development and pathways into community engagement.
(b) Completion of a satisfactory 4000-word essay which describes the community work undertaken during the course and reflects on it against the background of the course itself. Support and advice on essay-writing will be available as part of the course.
APPLICATION AND FEES
Application is by interview. There is no interview fee for applicants who have already completed (or be about to complete) either the Introductory Course or the Experiential Course. For others there is a £50 interview fee, which must be paid in advance. For those who enrol, the course fees of £840 are payable by 1 October 2019.
There are a limited number of bursaries available for students surviving on low income.
To set up an interview, contact the Courses Administrator via the form at the bottom of this page
Autumn 2019
WEEKEND 1
Saturday 19 October
10–10.30 Arrival
10.30–11.30 Introduction to the course
11.30–12.30 Seminar – The history of the PA
Facilitators: Barbara Latham and Lucy King
BARBARA LATHAM came from New Zealand and found the PA in 1972 to begin training. She has been learning the practice of therapy ever since. She also writes fiction.
LUCY KING is Chair of the PA Council of Management. She trained at the PA and practices as a psychotherapist in Cambridge.
12.30–1.30 Lunch (not provided)
1.30–3 Work reflection
Facilitator: Nicola Saunders
NICOLA SAUNDERS is a psychoanalytic psychotherapist and clinical supervisor working in the homeless sector and private practice. She is a member of the Free Psychotherapy Network.
3–3.30 Admin
Facilitator: Becky Coles
BECKY COLES is Course Administrator at the PA. She has been part of many activist and communist groups, particularly those connected to the London squatting scene. She has a PhD in the field of arts education and works part-time for the University of Nottingham. She has completed the PA’s Introductory Course and is beginning a Foundation Course in Group Analysis.
3.30–4 Break
4–5.30 Work presentations
Facilitators: Andrea Heath and Lucy King
ANDREA HEATH Andrea Heath practised art Psychotherapy for many years before studying at the Philadelphia Association.
Sunday 20 October
10.30–11 Arrival
11–12.30 Seminar – Structures for voluntary and community organisations
Facilitator: Antony Bewick-Smith
ANTONY BEWICK-SMITH has been working in local and national charities for over twenty years, with emphases on structures, infrastructure organisations, strategy and business planning. He holds an MSc (Hons) in Voluntary and Community Sector Studies from Birkbeck, University of London and an MA (Hons) from Robinson College, University of Cambridge. He is currently Development and Partnerships Manager at Voluntary Action Islington.
12.30–1.15 Lunch (not provided)
1.15–3.30 Film screening and discussion
Facilitator: Rob White
ROB WHITE is author of the books Freud's Memory (Palgrave Macmillan, 2008) and Todd Haynes (University of Illinois Press, 2013). He is an Associate Member of the Group Analytic Society International.
3.30–4 Break
4–5.30 Experiential group
Facilitator: Inge Hudson
INGE HUDSON (BA, AFBPsS, Member IGA) is a group analyst and a clinical psychologist. She has long experience of working within the NHS, at the Women’s Therapy Centre and in her private practice. She has taught on various training courses for psychotherapists and clinical psychologists.
WEEKEND 2
Saturday 23 November
10–10.30 Arrival
10.30–12 Work reflection
Facilitator: Nicola Saunders
12–12.30 Admin
Facilitator: Becky Coles
12.30–1.30 Lunch (not provided)
1.30–3.30 Seminar – Justice, action and community: from issue identification to implementation and evaluation
Facilitator: Del Loewenthal
DEL LOEWENTHAL is Chair of the Critical Psychotherapy Network and the Southern Association for Psychotherapy and Counselling, Founding Director of the Research Centre for Therapeutic Education and Emeritus Professor of Psychotherapy and Counselling at the University of Roehampton. He is an existential-analytic psychotherapist (having trained at the PA), psychologist, organisational consultant and photographer.
3.30–4 Break
4–5.30 Work presentations
Facilitators: Andrea Heath and Lucy King
Sunday 24 November
10.30–11 Arrival
11–12.30 Seminar – I can't, we can: the success of self-help fellowships in the treatment of addiction
Facilitator: Nick Mercer
NICK MERCER trained as a psychotherapist at the PA. Prior to that, he worked for many years as an addictions counsellor in drug and alcohol rehab, both in prisons and out in the community, where mutual aid groups like Alcoholics Anonymous and Narcotics Anonymous formed the backdrop of treatment and were the preferred suggestion for aftercare alongside further professional support. Many of the people who connected with these meetings achieved and maintained a long-term sobriety that had previously eluded them. In short, the self-help networks succeeded were other attempts to get clean or sober – individual therapy, substitution prescribing, CBT etc – had failed. To this day, the quiet success of AA’s approach to addiction continues throughout the world and continues to be largely ignored by the world of psychotherapy, hence the title of this seminar.
12.30–1.15 Lunch (not provided)
1.15–3.30 Film screening and discussion
Facilitator: Rob White
3.30–4 Break
4–5.30 Experiential group
Facilitator: Inge Hudson
Winter/spring 2020
WEEKEND 3
Saturday 11 January
10–10.30 Arrival
10.30–12 Work reflection
Facilitator: Nicola Saunders
12–12.30 Admin
Facilitator: Becky Coles
12.30–1.30 Lunch (not provided)
1.30–3.30 Seminar – The Free Psychotherapy Network
Facilitator: Paul Atkinson
PAUL ATKINSON is an independent psychotherapist working in London. He runs mens' therapy groups, campaigns with mental health activists against psycho-compulsion through DWP "work cure" policies, and is a member of the Free Psychotherapy Network.
3.30–4 Break
4–5.30 Work presentations
Facilitators: Andrea Heath and Lucy King
Sunday 12 January
10.30–11 Arrival
11–12.30 Seminar – Therapeutic communities - an impossible task and an impossible ask?
Facilitator: Nick Putman
NICK PUTMAN is the founder of Open Dialogue UK. He is a psychotherapist and certified Open Dialogue practitioner and trainer who specialises in working with people experiencing psychosis and their families. He spent around ten years living and working in a variety of community-based therapeutic services, including those run by the Philadelphia Association, the Arbours Crisis Centre, the Richmond Fellowship, and Windhorse in Massachusetts. Inspired by the values at the heart of these projects, he has been working over the past seven years to create more opportunities for people experiencing psychosis to meet with professionals/teams who are willing to "be with" them in a time of crisis and find meaning in their experience. Nick was instrumental in establishing the first three-year Open Dialogue training programme to be run outside of Finland, and has been a trainer on several international Open Dialogue programmes.
12.30–1.15 Lunch (not provided)
1.15–3.30 Film screening and discussion
Facilitator: Rob White
3.30–4 Break
4–5.30 Experiential group
Facilitator: Inge Hudson
WEEKEND 4
Saturday 7 March
10–10.30 Arrival
10.30–12 Work reflection
Facilitator: Nicola Saunders
12–12.30 Admin
Facilitator: Becky Coles
12.30–1.30 Lunch (not provided)
1.30–3.30 Seminar – Community building in a peer-led environment
Facilitator: Dan Sofer
DAN SOFER is the founder of Founders and Coders, a membership-based community interest company that is democratising the digital economy through peer-led learning and cooperative work. He was a trustee of the PA, 2010–17.
3.30–4 Break
4–5.30 Work presentations
Facilitators: Andrea Heath and Lucy King
Sunday 8 March
10.30–11 Arrival
11–12.30 Seminar – The scapegoat, justice and religion: The importance of the excluded in criminal justice policy
Facilitator: Paul Mathew
PAUL MATHEW is a practicing solicitor and team supervisor, working in the criminal justice system as advocate in the magistrates' courts and in police stations. He brings to his practice experience of previous lives as teacher, survivor of the mental health system, resident of both Arbours and Philadelphia Association communities, community worker and group therapist.
12.30–1.15 Lunch (not provided)
1.15–3.30 Film screening and discussion
Facilitator: Rob White
3.30–4 Break
4–5.30 Experiential group
Facilitator: Inge Hudson
Spring/summer 2020
WEEKEND 5
Saturday 25 April
10–10.30 Arrival
10.30–12 Work reflection
Facilitator: Nicola Saunders
12–12.30 Admin
Facilitator: Becky Coles
12.30–1.30 Lunch (not provided)
1.30–3.30 Seminar – Soviet psychiatry beyond the abuse: a story of care
Facilitator: Lizaveta Zeldina
LIZAVETA ZELDINA worked for many years as a clinical psychologist in a psychiatric setting and as a psychoanalytic therapist in private practice in Russia and as a facilitator in the TC in London. Lizaveta holds MA in Arts and now she is a PhD researcher at Birkbeck, University of London, writing her thesis on psychoanalysis in Soviet Russia and teaches students in the East-European Institute of Psychoanalysis in Saint-Petersburg.
3.30–4 Break
4–5.30 Work presentations
Facilitators: Andrea Heath and Lucy King
Sunday 26 April
10.30–11 Arrival
11–12.30 Seminar – Symbiotic relationships in community gardens
Facilitator: Catherine Stevens
CATHERINE STEVENS went to Edinburgh Art College and took a degree in sculpture. Later she worked in two different Camphill Communities in Scotland. These communities were founded on the ideas of Dr Karl Koenig, and were where she had her first experience of living and working in a residential community. Later Catherine went on to train as an art psychotherapist and later still to take a diploma in horticulture. She currently works as a community gardener and as an art therapist in private practice. Catherine has an interest in how our connections with the natural world can be important, and can allow us to have a sense of belonging and resilience which is inextricably linked with the natural world around us.
12.30–1.15 Lunch (not provided)
1.15–3.30 Film screening and discussion
Facilitator: Rob White
3.30–4 Break
3.45–5.15 Experiential group
Facilitator: Inge Hudson
WEEKEND 6
Saturday 6 June
10–10.30 Arrival
10.30–12 Work reflection
Facilitator: Nicola Saunders
12–12.30 Admin
Facilitator: Becky Coles
12.30–1.30 Lunch (not provided)
1.30–3.30 Seminar – Surviving work: The collective challenge ahead for mental health workers
Facilitator: Elizabeth Cotton
DR ELIZABETH COTTON is a writer and educator working in the field of mental health at work. Her background is in workers’ education and international development. She has worked in over 35 countries on diverse issues such as HIV/AIDS, organising and building grassroots networks, negotiating and bargaining with employers as head of education for Industriall, one of the largest trade unions in the world, reflected in her book Global Unions Global Business (Libri Publishers). She teaches and writes academically at the University of Hertfordshire about employment relations, precarity and mental health at work and is Editor-in-Chief of an ABS4 journal Work, Employment & Society (WES) looking at the sociology of work. She blogs as survivingwork.org to a network of 30,000 people. In 2016 she set up survivingworkinhealth.org, a free resource for frontline health workers in partnership with the Tavistock and Portman NHS Foundation Trust. Her book Surviving Work in Healthcare: Helpful stuff for people on the frontline (Gower, 2017) was nominated for the Chartered Management Institute’s practitioner book of the year.
3.30–4 Break
4–5.30 Work presentations
Facilitators: Andrea Heath and Lucy King
Sunday 7 June
10.30–11 Arrival
11–12.30 Discussion – What next?
12.30–1.15 Lunch (not provided)
1.15–3.30 Film screening and discussion
Facilitator: Rob White
3.30–4 Break
4–5.30 Experiential group
Facilitator: Inge Hudson