INTRODUCTORY COURSE IN PHILOSOPHY AND PSYCHOTHERAPY
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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
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The course will take place on Thursday evenings from October at our premises in Hampstead, north London, and consists of a weekly seminar and an experiential group. Each student will be allocated a personal tutor. You 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.
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REQUIREMENTS
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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.
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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
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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.
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Interviewing now Click here to apply.
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PROGRAMME 2024/5
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In addition to the regular meetings of each individual course, students from all the courses are invited to attend series of Study Programme Saturday morning online seminars.
Course Coordinators:
Andrea Heath & Lucy King
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Experiential Group Facilitators:
Laura Lauberte & James Mann
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PA Office: Josh Foyster
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​​Term 1
17 & 24 October
Why not Psychoanalysis ?
Barbara Latham
31 October & 7 November
Use & Misuse of Theory
Lucy King
14 November
On Community
Jake Osborne
21 & 28 November
A Serious Conversation
Nick Mercer
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5 & 12 December
Ethics & Psychotherapy
Elie Jesner
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Term 2
23 & 30 January 2025
Laing’s Anti-Psychoanalysis and Ontological Insecurity
Kevin Ball
6 February
Decolonising Psychotherapy
Alia Butt
13 February
Nietzsche and psychotherapy: an introduction to phenomenology, scepticism and the death of God
Onel Brooks
20 & 27 February
The World Comes First: the social context of psychotherapy and its philosophical underpinnings
Paul Gurney
6 & 13 March
Freud, Little Hans and “the long stretch of childhood”.
Pamela Stewart
20 & 27 March
Homelessness & Psychosis
Andreas Constandinos
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3 April
Nietzsche and psychotherapy: an introduction to phenomenology, scepticism and the death of God
Onel Brooks
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​Term 3
1 & 8 May
Psychoanalysis & Gender
Kit Zinovieff
15 & 22 May
Title tbc
Robbie Lockwood
29 May & 6 June
Extraordinary Experiences in person IC over 2 weeks - William James The Varieties of Religious Experience and RD Laing. Extraordinary Experiences related in therapy and experienced in therapy.
Emma Stroker
12 June 2025
Endings
Amy Ison & Andrea Heath
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Study Programme Saturday Morning Online Seminars via Zoom.
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In addition to the regular meetings of each individual course, students from all the courses are welcome to attend the PA Saturday morning online (Zoom) seminars.
10 - 11.30am
​November 2024​
PA Communities
Kay Holmes
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December 14 2024
Training to be a Psychotherapist
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January 25 2025
Hell is other people: existential approach to anorexia.
Kevin Ball
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1 & 8 February 2025​
The therapeutic use of photographs: phototherapy & therapeutic photography.
Del Loewenthal
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22 & 29 March 2025
Psychological Responses and Reactions to Climate Crisis
Paul Zeal
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April 2025
Freud & Freud
Is this the way you see me ?
Portraits
Andrea Heath & Fiona Fawkes
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​May 10 2025​
Abandoned Communities
TBC
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