Psychotherapy

In this programme you will learn, acquire and adapt the skills and knowledge required for working with a diverse range of clients and clinical situations with complex and multifaceted needs.



During the course, you’ll study evidence-based, flexible and responsive psychotherapeutic approaches to help you support and advocate for and with adults facing psychosocial questions and concerns. You will develop expertise as an integrative adult psychotherapist, drawing from humanistic, psychodynamic, cognitive-behavioural, and systemic approaches to psychotherapy to develop your own style as a practitioner and flexibly meet the needs of particular clients. On the MSc in Psychotherapy, you will also complete modules on adult intimate relationships, family systems theory, and psychosexual wellbeing; although these are not in and of themselves qualifications for working with couples, they will give you sufficient grounding to pursue such a specialisation after graduation if you so choose.



Learn essential skills and get hands-on clinical experience

You’ll learn essential skills and core competencies to help you practise safely and establish good working relationships with your clients. You’ll also get to complete clinical placements in a public sector or voluntary organisation to gain practical experience.



Once you complete the course, you’ll be sought after for roles including counsellor or psychotherapist in public or private healthcare, education or other organisations.



The MSc in Psychotherapy is a four-year part-time professional training programme at Level 9 NFQ (120 credits). Students may exit after two years with a Graduate Diploma in Psychotherapy (60 credits; although do note that the Graduate Diploma is not a professional qualification and on its own cannot be utilised to seek professional accreditation or to practise psychotherapy).



The MSc programme is an integrative psychotherapy training programme, focused on working with individual adult clients. (The program does not qualify students for working with children or adolescents or as a couples or family therapist, because these would involve further or more specialised training.) Our programme is integrative insofar as we focus on the theories and practice of humanistic, psychodynamic, cognitive-behavioural, and systemic approaches.



The MSc programme fosters an inquiry-based attitude in psychotherapy theory, practice and research. This integrative psychotherapy programme provides students with an opportunity to work psychotherapeutically with a diversity of clients with complex and multifaceted needs and intends to hold equality, diversity and inclusion as a core principle for staff, students, clinical training and thus clients.



Students will also be introduced to developing specialist expertise in particular fields of psychotherapy - including relationship therapy, psychosexual therapeutic practice, working with trauma, and mindfulness and somatic approaches to psychotherapy.



It also includes supervision of research and clinical work to facilitate completion of a research project and a professional practice portfolio.



The MSc programme is designed to equip and support students to undertake therapeutic practice with adults. The course is delivered in Dublin City University via ten blocks of contact teaching work (approximately three days per block) over the academic year (September to April).

For admission to the M.Sc. in Psychotherapy, entrants will normally:



Have a relevant level 8 undergraduate degree (on the NFQ: National Framework of Qualifications; or its equivalent outside of Ireland; for example, in social care/work, psychology, nursing, education, etc.)



Applicants must have completed a minimum of one year’s recent and relevant professional or voluntary experience in specific and explicit caring or mental health helping role prior to application. (*This experience does not need to be full-time, and in most cases will qualify as long as applicants speak to regularly putting in hours over their year or more of relevant experience and testify as to the significance of this experience in terms of their professional development and exposure to the field.) This experience must include some element of definite counselling/communication training and supervision and may, for example, involve voluntary counselling or helpline work, social care, nursing, special needs teaching support for individuals and families, guidance counselling, psychology assistant work, or pastoral care. In their application, candidates will be expected to demonstrate how this experience has helped them to recognise their potential for psychotherapy training and deepen their interest in pursuing it as a professional path. The majority of this experience must involve working with adults and should be grounded in real-time, verbal communication (in person, by phone, or by video). Text- or email-only communication would not meet this interpersonal requirement.



Recognition of Prior Learning (RPL) applicants are required to submit a cover letter along with their application under the Transcripts section of the portal, affirming their intent to apply for RPL. For more information on RPL see here

4 years part-time.

Careers

There are career prospects for counsellors and psychotherapists within the Statutory, Education, Voluntary and Private sectors. Due to the programme's specialism, you will find specialist psychotherapeutic practice with individuals and couples. Alternatively, researchers in qualitative, quantitative and mixed methods research projects are always in demand.