Advanced Diploma in Existential Psychotherapy

Introduction

SPCP's Advanced Diploma courses provide a specialist psychotherapy training emphasising the challenges, innovations to, and re-interpretations of, the therapeutic encounter, preparing participants for advanced professional work in private practice or institutional settings.

Satisfactory completion will achieve eligibility to apply for registration with the appropriate bodies.

The aim of the course is to produce practitioners who are able to explore their clients' orientation to the world and to themselves, and who are competent in an approach which focuses on descriptive rather than analytic examination and clarification of the client's issues, beliefs, and world-views in a manner that respects the client's autonomy within an existential-phenomenological perspective of the therapeutic relationship and process

Objectives

The key objective of the course is to make it possible for trainees:

• to develop a consolidated understanding of the fundamental contribution of existential philosophy
• to become competent practitioners in the application in therapeutic practice of their philosophical understanding
• to have a general level of understanding of other major modalities of therapy
• to develop their capacity for informed reflection on their clinical practice
• to consolidate their capacity effectively to utilise supervision from peers and supervisors
• to gain an understanding of ethical research methods relevant to clinical practice in the field
• to become eligible for professional registration as practitioners of the chosen modality of psychotherapy and/or counselling

At the end of Year 1: Eligibility in terms of training hours to apply for individual Accreditation with BACP

At the end of Year 2: Eligibility to apply for UKCP Registration as an Existential Psychotherapist

To apply for registration/accreditation with either UKCP (The United Kingdom Council for Psychotherapy)or BACP(The British Association for Counselling) a minimum of 450 clinical hours must be completed.

Existential Psychotherapy

Existential psychotherapy is a down-to-earth form of therapy. The emphasis is on the individual's existence rather than just his/her mind, the client's experience rather than theories. It is characteristically focused more on the therapist's attitude than upon any specific technique. Existential psychotherapy is primarily a place of encounter where two human beings meet and enter into a dialogue. It is firmly based on continental philosophy and phenomenology: life problems are philosophical and the process of therapy enables clients to become aware of their philosophy of life. The therapist seeks to attend to the client's experience of being-in-the-world via descriptive clarification and challenge. At the same time the process challenges therapists to consider and confront their own biases and assumptions.

Structure

The course is designed to be completed in two years.

Each daily session comprises: an academic and practical seminar; training supervision; and a personal and professional development group.

Personal therapy

Every student is expected to be in individual therapy with an approved UKCP registered psychotherapist for the duration of the course.

Supervision

Every student is expected to be in individual therapy with an approved UKCP registered psychotherapist throughout the duration of the course.

Entry Requirements

• Satisfactory completion of either the taught components of SPCP's MA in Psychotherapy and Counselling, or an equivalent masters-level professional training in psychotherapy/counselling/ counselling psychology
• Interest and basic understanding of existential philosophy
• Willingness to further develop their philosophy of psychotherapy and to remain critical and open about it
• Good working knowledge of existential psychotherapy and counselling
• Emotional maturity and evidence of an ability to be self-reflective and function effectively under pressure
• A flexible and open attitude to a wide range of life experience
• Completion of a minimum of two years regular individual psychotherapy.

Syllabus
Academic seminars

• Heidegger and Existential Psychotherapy
• Existence and Therapy
• Merleau-Ponty, Existential Phenomenology and Psychotherapy
• Ethics of Existential-Phenomenological Analysis
• Language and Philosophy
• Student-led Seminars.

Each academic seminar will be followed by an in depth exploration of the underlying ideas that influence well established practitioners such as Ernesto Spinelli, Hans Cohn, Emmy van Deurzen, Rollo May, Irvin Yalom, Freddie Strasser and others and how they have integrated philosophy into their practice with clients. This will assist trainees in developing their own way of working.

Although grounded in philosophy, the ADEP is principally a training programme and, as such, the primary focus will be on trainees' development as qualified practitioners with an expertise in the underlying assumptions, approaches, and attitudes that broadly characterise existential psychotherapy.

Description

The existential approach is concerned with the exploration and understanding of people's orientation to the world and to themselves, and with the clarification of what it means to be alive.

The approach focuses on descriptive rather than analytic examination and clarification of the client's issues, beliefs, and world-views in a manner that respects the client's autonomy. It adopts a receptive rather than a directive stance and requires an open-mindedness and attitude of wonder and respect for the uniqueness of the client.

In so doing, it raises significant challenges to a number of fundamental assumptions, be they personal or professional. Overall the existential approach reveals and questions fundamental assumptions concerning the nature and practice of psychotherapy and raises the practitioner's awareness as to the possibilities and limitations of both his or her individual practice and of the practice of psychotherapy as a whole.

Clinical Placement

Every trainee is expected to work, on a once-weekly basis, with 2 - 3 adult clients, of which one must be on a long-term basis from the start of the course until the end of the training

Accreditation

UKCP RegistrationThe Society for Existential Analysis, a learned society with links to the School, is an accrediting organisation within the Experiential and Constructivist Section of the UKCP, and registers graduates of the School's Advanced Diploma in Existential Psychotherapy as UKCP registered existential psychotherapists. British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy (BACP) AccreditationAfter completion of the first year of the Advanced Diploma programme, trainees will be able to seek individual accreditation with the BACP. At that point they will have accumulated contact hours that may be counted towards meeting criterion 1.i of the BACP Accreditation Criteria. Candidates must note that they will also have to meet criteria 2 - 6 of the BACP Scheme.