(FdA) Foundation Degree of Arts
Therapeutic Communication and Therapeutic Organisations
Current
University of Essex
University of Essex
Psychosocial and Psychoanalytic Studies
Colchester Campus
Foundation Degree
Full-time
Health Studies
Psychology
None
FDA LX51
10/05/2023
Details
Professional accreditation
Accredited by the Association for Psychodynamic Practice and Counselling in Organisational Settings (APPCIOS).
Admission criteria
IELTS (International English Language Testing System) code
Course qualifiers
A course qualifier is a bracketed addition to your course title to denote a specialisation or pathway that you have achieved via the completion of specific modules during your course. The
specific module requirements for each qualifier title are noted below. Eligibility for any selected qualifier will be determined by the department and confirmed by the final year Board of
Examiners. If the required modules are not successfully completed, your course title will remain as described above without any bracketed addition. Selection of a course qualifier is
optional and student can register preferences or opt-out via Online Module Enrolment (eNROL).
None
Rules of assessment
Rules of assessment are the rules, principles and frameworks which the University uses to calculate your course progression and final results.
Additional notes
None
External examiners
Dr Anthony John Faramelli
Lecturer in Visual Cultures
Goldsmiths
External Examiners provide an independent overview of our courses, offering their expertise and help towards our continual improvement of course content, teaching, learning, and assessment.
External Examiners are normally academics from other higher education institutions, but may be from the industry, business or the profession as appropriate for the course.
They comment on how well courses align with national standards, and on how well the teaching, learning and assessment methods allow students to develop and demonstrate the relevant knowledge and skills needed to achieve their awards.
External Examiners who are responsible for awards are key members of Boards of Examiners. These boards make decisions about student progression within their course and about whether students can receive their final award.
Programme aims
The programme aims to support practitioners in developing the insight, understanding and skills in order to deepen their therapeutic practice in working with young people and/or vulnerable adults.
A psychosocial approach is used, including a consideration of the therapeutic needs of the client, the way team and organisational dynamics can support or impede the work, and the core elements of establishing supportive, therapeutic working relationships.
The perspectives of the programme are relevant to work in many sectors including schools, fostering agencies, care setting, and mental health services.
More particularly, this programme aims:
- To utilise the students' existing work experience to introduce psychodynamic concepts
- To provide a basic psychoanalytic vocabulary and understanding of the unconscious dimension of relationships, communication and emotional containment
- To understand the psychodynamics in working groups and institutions
- To understand the principles of psychodynamic observation as a way of understanding institutions
- To understand the role of emotions in learning, and the differences from the role of behaviour in learning
- To develop a psychodynamic understanding of the effect of disruptive behaviour on the institution and the therapeutic potential of a psychodynamic management of the institution
- To understand a basic model of emotional functioning in individuals, groups and therapeutic and educational processes in institutions
- To explore ideas related to hope and the therapeutic process.
Learning outcomes and learning, teaching and assessment methods
On successful completion of the programme a graduate should demonstrate knowledge and skills as follows:
A: Knowledge and understanding
A1: To defind and use psychoanalytic concepts to understand and describe relationships and communication
A2: To show a psychoanalytic understanding of the unconscious factors in group structuring and functioning.
A3: To demonstrate a psychoanalytic grasp of the impact of an institution on an individual and of an individual on an institution.
A4: To understand psychoanalytically the emotional factors that affect learning, and the progression from emotional learning to emotional understanding, and their relationship to behaviour.
A5: To demonstrate a psychoanalytic understanding of emotions and their (failed) containment and management in groups to wider social settings, such as the family and community
A6: To identify sources of pessimism and optimism in individuals, groups and institutions.
Learning methods
The programme makes use of theoretical seminars (A1, A4), clinically orientated seminars (A2, A5, A6), work-based clinical practice (A2, A3, A4, A6), the experience of group relations and psychodynamic group observation (A2, A3, A6).
Assessment methods
Essays and presentations
B: Intellectual and cognitive skills
B1: To define and use specific psychoanalytic concepts describing relationships and communication, including transference, counter-transference, projection, introjection, etc
B2: To describe psychoanalytically the unconscious factors in group structuring and functioning, such as anxiety, defences against anxiety, authority and leadership.
B3: To describe in psychoanalytic terms the impact of an institution on an individual and of an individual on an institution.
B4: To describe the emotional factors that affect learning, and the progression from emotional learning to emotional understanding, and their relationship to behaviour.
B5: To describe psychoanalytically the eruption, containment, management in groups, and in wider social settings, such as the family and community.
B6: To identify opportunities to consider with colleagues the sources of pessimism and optimism in individuals, groups and institutions, and to apply this recognition to working in institutions and planning for change.
Learning methods
The programme makes use of theoretical seminars (B1, B4), clinically orientated seminars (B2, B5, B6), work-based clinical practice (B4, B6), the experience of group relations and psychodynamic group observation (B2.
B3, B6).
In addition, students learn how to carry out psychodynamically informed social observations, and through work-place supervised practice and performative assessment, focus their theoretical understanding on specific settings and situations
Assessment methods
Essays and presentations
C: Practical skills
C1: To recognize and describe specific situations in institutions, in psychoanalytic terms.
C2: To recognize and describe behaviour, including learning behaviour, as a result of emotional difficulties.
C3: To analyze difficulties of individuals in terms of problems of relationships and of institutional factors.
C4: To work effectively in an institutional setting, communicating and collaborating with colleagues.
C5: To carry out a piece of sustained clinical work.
Learning methods
The programme makes use of theoretical seminars (C1), clinically orientated seminars (C2, C3), work-based clinical practice (C4), the experience of group relations and psychodynamic group observation.
In addition, students learn how to carry out psychodynamically informed social observations (C2, C3), and through work-place supervised practice (C1, C2, C3, C4, C5) and performative assessment, focus their theoretical understanding on specific settings and situations.
Their supervised practice provides the main setting for the development of specific skills.
Assessment methods
Essays
D: Key skills
D1: To communicate effectively with colleagues and with clients.
D2: To use e-mail, Moodle and electronic submission of assessed work.
D3: Knowledge of the range of available research approaches and an understanding of how this knowledge relates to their chosen area of research
D4: To evolve therapeutic strategies; to decide on specific topics for essays.
D5: To work effectively in an institutional setting, in which collaboration is the basic aim as well as therapeutic process.
D6: To work independently, especially through e-based learning and to learn through the practice, which is at the heart of the programme.
Learning methods
The programme makes use of theoretical seminars (D2, D4, D6), clinically orientated seminars (D2, D4, D6), work-based clinical practice (D1, D5), the experience of group relations and psychodynamic group observation (D1, D5).
In addition, students learn how to carry out psychodynamically informed social observations, and through work-place supervised practice and performative assessment, focus their theoretical understanding on specific settings and situations (D1, D4, D5).
Their supervised practice provides the main setting for the development of specific skills.
In addition, their work takes place in an institution, in which collaboration between staff is continuous and essential
Assessment methods
Mentoring report Essays Reflective report