About the training

Outline of the training in existential-analytic psychotherapy and existential-analytic psychotherapeutic counselling:

​Aims
The programme is designed for those individuals who wish to meet the requirements for professional accreditation by the United Kingdom Council for Psychotherapy. Besides private practice, the programme is also designed to meet the needs of professionals and public, private and voluntary organisations. More specifically, our aims are:

• To provide a clinical training in existential-analytic psychotherapy and existential-analytic psychotherapeutic counselling, enabling successful participants to go on the UKCP register.
• To develop theoretical understandings of the implications of phenomenology/post-phenomenology through humanistic, existential, psychoanalytic and postmodern/post-existential approaches to psychotherapy; and, counselling practice, and contrast with cognitive, behavioural approaches.
• To consider the need for critical psychotherapy, psychoanalysis and counselling, and with it the sociological/anthropological and political economy.
• To consider what use, if any, different notions of research into psychotherapy and counselling aid thoughtful practice.
• To develop trainees’ ethical and therapeutic responsibility for others’ responsibility, as well as students’ own learning as independent practitioners.
• To enable participants to integrate existential, person-centred, analytic and postmodern/post-existential approaches.
• To explore the possibility of reinventing therapy appropriately and ethically for each client/patient.
• To acquire a theoretical understanding of epistemological, ontological and methodological implications of phenomenology, psychoanalysis and postmodernism/post-existentialism for therapeutic practice.
• To advance therapeutic practice through critically examining our own and others’ practices.

Course duration
The training is normally a 4-5 year training depending on when the student is ready to progress to registration as an existential-analytic psychotherapist, and 3-4 years as an existential-analytic psychotherapeutic counsellor. 

Assignments
In each of the training phases, three assignments are required, usually based on a trainee’s case study, each of approximately 2500 words (with the exception of phase 3, which is one assignment of 7500 words). Trainees will be required to pass these and meet the attendance, personal therapy, supervision and clinical practice requirements in order to progress to the subsequent year.
​
Training requirements

• 80% attendance on the Thursday evening programme and Saturday study days.
• Personal therapy – it is a requirement that candidates are in weekly personal therapy and strongly recommended that they engage in twice weekly therapy for at least 2 years. The personal therapist is arranged with one of the existential-analytic clinical members of SAFPAC (this cannot be the same person as the supervisor nor a member of the training committee) or a psychoanalytic psychotherapist as defined by UKCP (CPJA section) or BPC, who has an appropriate training in one-to-one psychotherapy and is currently engaged in psychotherapeutic/psychoanalytic practice. (Trainees are required to have a minimum of 35 hours personal therapy a year and a minimum of 160 hours overall. The trainee will pay their personal therapist the individually agreed session rate.)
• Supervision – There will be with two people in the supervisory team, and the trainee will see one or the other on a weekly basis, alternating for example, every five weeks. Both supervisors will be clinical members of SAFPAC and registered as existential-analytic psychotherapists with a minimum of three years post-registration.  At least one supervisor will be a member of the training committee. (As a guide, it is expected that trainees will have a minimum of 40 supervisions a year at a cost, to be reviewed annually, of £60 per session - payable to the supervisor)
• Clinical practice – Minimum 500 hours practice (minimum 100 hours per phase).

Further guidance on the requirements is set out in the student handbook and all therapist, supervisors and placements are approved through learning community meetings of staff and students.

​Process for progression to registration as an existential-analytic psychotherapeutic counsellor with UKCP
After successful completion of phases one, two and three, and from the third term of phase 4, the portfolio is submitted to the training committee as part of the requirements for professional accreditation with UKCP.  The student also undertakes a verbal presentation, of a fixed short-term client, to the learning community.

Process for progression to registration as an existential-analytic psychotherapist with UKCP
After successful completion of phases one, two, three and four, the portfolio is submitted to the training committee as part of the requirements for professional accreditation with UKCP.  The student also undertakes a verbal presentation of a client who they have seen for a minimum of two years, to the learning community.

Term dates

ACADEMIC YEAR 2024-2025
SAFPAC/CPN Annual Conference - 28th September 2024 ‘Psychotherapy, the Individual and Society: Have we got it right?’

• Autumn Term - Phenomenology through Existentialism - 03/10/2024 - 12/12/2024 (Reading week w/c 21/10/24)
• Spring Term - Phenomenology through Psychoanalysis - 16/01/2025 - 27/03/2025 (Reading week w/c 10/02/25)
• Summer Term - Phenomenology and Critical Psychotherapy -  01/05/2025 - 10/07/2025 (Reading Week w/c 26/05/25)
• Saturday meetings 10.00am - 5.00pm:
  2nd November 2024
  22nd February 2025
  17th May 2025

ACADEMIC YEAR 2025-2026
SAFPAC/CPN Annual Conference - 27th September 2025’ Decolonising psychotherapy and empires of the mind: Opportunities and debates’

• Autumn Term - Phenomenology through Existentialism - 02/10/2025 - 11/12/2025 (Reading week w/c 20/10/25)
• Spring Term - Phenomenology through Psychoanalysis - 15/01/2026 - 26/03/2026 (Reading week w/c 09/02/26)
• Summer Term - Phenomenology and Critical Psychotherapy -  30/04/2026 - 09/07/2026 (Reading Week w/c 25/05/26)
• Saturday meetings 10.00am - 5.00pm:
  1st November 2025
  21st February 2026
  16th May 2026

Entry requirements
Entry requirements are as follows:

1. a) Candidates must demonstrate the ability to study at the equivalent of Masters level by having at least one of the following: a first degree at honours level, normally a 2(i) or above. Candidates may also be considered where the classification is below a 2(i) if they can demonstrate the ability, through subsequent written work, to study at the required postgraduate level;
   OR
   ​b) A relevant professional qualification, normally equivalent to 3 years full time study.
2. Relevant experience in the psychological therapies or related fields (e.g. nursing, teaching, social work).
3. Have successfully completed an intrusion to psychotherapy/counselling training
4. Two references, a minimum of one will be academic.

SAFPAC is an equal opportunities employer and training organisation and where appropriate will seek to encourage applications from underrepresented groups.

​Fees:
£1400 per annum or £507 per term for academic year 2025/26 for the UKCP training, and will be reviewed annually. A charge of £242 is made for the application for progression onto the UKCP register as a clinical member.

​How to apply:
Please complete the application form: SAFPAC Training Application Form