DPsych Doctorate in Psychotherapy by Professional Studies PT

A Joint Programme with Middlesex University

Faculty Head and Programme Leader: Professor Simon du Plock.

A post-qualification professional doctorate designed to revitalise and nourish fully qualified mid-career therapeutic practitioners. Doctoral candidates design and undertake a research and development project which focuses on a topic of direct relevance to their own professional and/or clinical work, and which makes an innovative contribution to their field.

What is a post-qualification professional doctorate?

Professional doctorates are the most rapidly expanding field of doctoral study nationally and internationally. Unlike the thesis-based PhD or taught doctoral programmes, professional doctorates are designed to serve the interests of specific professions and emphasise knowledge which is practice based. They are nationally credited at the same level as the PhD.

The Doctorate in Psychotherapy (DPsych) is a leading example of professional doctorates in the United Kingdom.

Who is it for?

The DPsych is unique among the professional doctorates in providing a dedicated research programme for senior qualified practitioners, as distinct from a route to qualification. As such, it is designed for senior accredited and experienced psychotherapists, counsellors and psychologists looking for an integrated professional and academic development programme which relates directly to your practice as clinicians, trainers, supervisors, managers, or writers. It encourages and facilitates you to update and expand your application of theory to practice, and to critique your own assumptions with particular attention to current developments within the wider field. It is committed to research activity being useful and active in the world.

It therefore takes an integrative stance and will appeal to practitioners from a wide range of theoretical orientations and practice.

Applicants are expected to have a Masters in Counselling or Psychotherapy or closely related field or equivalent, and be accredited by UKCP, BACP or BPS. Accreditation by other similar counselling, psychotherapy and psychology bodies will be assessed on a case by case basis.

A Practice Based Research Attitude

You develop your own doctorate within the frame of your practice experience and focus Modular aspects of the programme, fieldwork observations, research and informed exchanges with colleagues and experts, will broaden and deepen your practice, knowledge and ability with regard to specific work settings, client groups, problem areas, treatment options and methodologies. Critical Inquiry will provide you with ways to examine, investigate and evaluate psychotherapy as practised by yourself and by other practitioners. This form of psychotherapy research is both reflective and productive, culminating in projects, products (publications, manuals CD’s etc), dissertations and scholarly works. An important criterion of assessment of these at doctoral level is evidence demonstrating their usefulness to and impact o n practitioners, organisations and the wider field of psychotherapy which may include overlapping areas with related professions.

Forming a Community of Scholarly Practitioners

The learning method is essentially self-directed. You will be engaged together in a form of collaborative inquiry. The members of the Programme Team will provide you with a degree of leadership and direction and, in the case of the research seminars, an initial contribution in the form of taught input and suggested reading lists. However, as doctoral candidates, you will be expected to engage in an autonomous form of learning, doing extensive reading in the subject area, viewing your own professional experience as research and formulating your own distinctive ideas and approaches. The programme is designed to encourage collaborative and/or individual written work.

The Programme supports the value of the Practitioner Doctorate and the importance to the field of Practice Based evidence which emerges from such an undertaking.

It is a Programme which is challenging and rewarding with space for creativity and individual styles of learning.

Individuals who are interested in the Doctoral Programme are invited to a Briefing Seminar. These seminars provide an opportunity to explore the structure of the programme with one or two members of the Programme team. Candidate’s own professional experience and interests and how these might be reflected in possible Doctoral projects for themselves as individuals are also discussed.

This is a Middlesex University programme and qualification, jointly developed, delivered and assessed by Middlesex and Metanoia Institute and quality assured by Middlesex University.