top of page

INTRODUCTORY COURSE IN PHILOSOPHY AND PSYCHOTHERAPY

The Introductory Course is both a stand alone certificate course and an introduction to study at the PA. Students who complete the IC can apply to the one year Diploma in Community and Psychotherapy and the Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy Training. 

 

OVERVIEW

The course will take place on Thursday  evenings from October 2022 at our premises in Hampstead, north London, and consists of a weekly seminar and an experiential group. Each student will be allocated a personal tutorYou will be invited to study past and current psychological theories and treatments of human suffering taught in conjunction with philosophy, in particular phenomenology as well as ideas drawn from art, literature, the politics of psychiatry, power and lived experience. 

REQUIREMENTS

The PA has never prized academic qualifications over other skills and experience. Sometimes people who never intended to become psychotherapists find that the Introductory Course inspires them to follow this path after all. 

Being a student at the PA means you will have access to our small library and you will also be invited to attend regular PA events and contribute to the PA newsletter.

 

APPLICATION AND FEES

Application is by interview. The course costs £840 plus a £50 interview fee. There are a limited number of bursaries available for students surviving on low income.

Interviews for 2022/23 begin in April. Click here to apply.

PROGRAMME

Thursday Evenings 

Course Coordinators: 

Andrea Heath & Lucy King 

Experiential Group Facilitators: 

Laura Lauberte & James Mann

Administration:

Sophia Raja

Experiential group begins at 6.15pm and lasts ninety minutes

 

7.45pm break

 

Seminar begins at 8pm and lasts ninety minutes

Term 1 

 

20 & 27 October 2022

Theory in Psychotherapy — Use and Misuse

Lucy King

 

3 & 10 November

What is Community?

Jake Osborne

17 & 24 November
Ethics and Character in Psychotherapy
Elie Jesner

 

1 & 8 December

The Divided Self

Alison Davies

 

15 December

Phenomenology

Miles Clapham

Term 2

26 January  & 2 February 2023

Buddhism & Psychotherapy

Andreas Constandinos

9 February

An Animated Life

Alex Widdowson

16  &  23 February

Class and Psychotherapy

Paul Gurney

2 & 9 March

What Happens in the Room

Nick Mercer

 

16 & 23  March

How far has psychotherapy been an enabler of neoliberal values like individualism, social inequality and the centrality of the market?

How far has it been a force for positive social and cultural change as well as individual development?

Can psychotherapy undermine and transcend

the dominion of money and social injustice?

Nicola Saunders

Paul Atkinson

Term 3

20 April

On Nietzsche

Onel Brooks

 

27 April & 4 May

Friendship, beauty and justice: on being fair​
Robbie Lockwood

11 May & 18 May

Intimacy Avoidance & The Psyche as an Energetic Field 

Nick Duffell

25 May

Art Inside 

Amy Ison

1 June

Psychotherapy and the Decentred Subject

Del Loewenthal

 

8 & 15 June 

Endings

Mark Elmer

bottom of page