Clinical Training Course in Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy
The Guild of Psychotherapists offers a respected and rigorous training in the field of psychoanalytic psychotherapy that has run annually for the last 50 years.
Applications for the four-year training in Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy commencing in October 2025 will be accepted between February and July 2025.
As a pluralist training, we believe that no one body of theory is regarded as holding “the truth”, therefore the training programme includes a spectrum covering major approaches to psychoanalytic theory and practice.
This training qualifies psychotherapists to work with adults. On completion of the training and with election to membership of the Guild, trainees gain UKCP membership if they wish to apply for it.
The Guild aims to involve trainees in the continuing evaluation and reformulation of psychoanalytic thinking, emphasising a questioning approach and the importance of recognising the historical, cultural and individual contexts in which concepts have developed, taking into account the ethnocentric, gender biased and anti-homosexual ideology that may have influenced psychoanalytic theory. We also encourage trainees to develop awareness of working with individual histories and social contexts in the clinic in order as far as possible to address rather than to repeat social iniquities.
Please see our FAQs page) for some of the more common queries about training. We warmly encourage you to attend an Open Day to gain a feel for the Guild’s training and the membership.
Please see the Guild Syllabus and Prospectus below.
Applications
The Guild accepts a diverse range of applicants from all backgrounds. You do not need to come from a clinical background although if you don’t have any experience, we would encourage you to find some clinical experience of a voluntary kind prior to applying. Prior to application, you will normally have been in twice-weekly therapy for at least one year with a suitably experienced psychoanalyst or psychoanalytic psychotherapist. (For questions about the suitability of your analyst, please enquire via the Training Administrator, Clare Grady).
The course fee, which is subject to review annually, is currently £2,850 per annum, exclusive of the cost of therapy and supervision.
With your application, we ask for your CV and a payment of £150 to cover the costs of administration. We also require you to ask two referees to send their references to the Training Administrator at the email below to arrive as soon as possible after the submission of your application form.
If you have any questions about the training or the application process, please email our Training Administrator, Clare Grady.
Decisions about applications are be made on a rolling basis— meaning that where possible we will make a decision whether to invite you to interviews when we receive your application and decide whether to make an offer soon thereafter. It may be an advantage to apply early as, if the training places are full by the summer, we will stop looking at applications for that year’s trainee group.
To apply please download an application form.
Selection for Training
Our main Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy training begins in October each year, and selection for it takes place during each preceding spring and summer. The Guild accepts applicants from diverse backgrounds and actively seeks to widen the range of groups from whom applications are received. The Guild values both life and work experience as well as academic qualifications. Emphasis is placed on the applicant’s capacity for drawing on personal resources to undertake an emotionally, intellectually and academically demanding course.
Applicants will be required to have undertaken personal psychoanalytic psychotherapy at a minimum frequency of twice weekly prior to their application, and are required to maintain this throughout the training until qualification. Our organisation values the individual qualities trainees bring to psychotherapeutic work, and offers guidance to potential applicants, whose background may be a disadvantage in meeting the requirements of the course.
The Course
Seminars are held on Wednesday evenings at Nelson Square over a period of four years. Teaching is done in seminar groups, to which trainees contribute with prepared presentations and in discussion and debate. The first year has two theory seminars. In further years each evening consists of one theory seminar and one clinical discussion seminar. Additional training days are held on Saturdays to allow consideration of important topics, including assessment, group dynamics, clinical ethics, building a private practice, and time-limited work. The programme is reviewed annually to consider both the range of psychoanalytic theories and contemporary developments within the field. Trainees are invited to provide feedback on their experience, at the end of each term, as well as at an annual syllabus meeting.
Course Requirements
The course requirements include: attendance at seminars, gaining clinical experience with a range of patients and in different situations and continuous psychoanalytic psychotherapy until qualification. The clinical work includes but is not confined to: work with patients under training supervision, building up a practice, (as appropriate to the individual), undertaking a placement in our community based Reduced-Fee Clinic (up to two years) and undertaking a placement within an adult psychiatric setting (minimum half a day per week for six months). Trainees are required to submit specified written work, which take two forms: six-monthly reports on clinical work — which are submitted to the trainee’s personal tutor — and annual pieces of work with a reflective, theoretical and clinical focus which are seen by the Training Committee. One essay, half way through the course, is a self-assessment which the trainee contributes to the mid-training review. Non-assessed essays on the experience of working in The Guild Clinic and on the psychiatric placement are also required to be given to the personal tutor. All these pieces of work prepare for the final clinical paper, presented when the trainee applies for qualification and membership.
Throughout the training period, trainees receive feedback on their progress. Trainees have a personal tutor who is their link to the Training Committee. Feedback is given by the tutor, by supervisors in supervisor’s reports, in written comments on assessed essays, and where necessary by the Training Committee as a whole.
Ethical Commitment
Trainees are subject to The Guild’s Code of Ethics. Consideration of ethical issues forms part of both supervision and discussion with tutors, and one or more Saturday training day addresses this central topic. The Guild requires understanding of ethical issues in the field to be demonstrated prior to qualification.
Guild trainees must arrange to have Professional Indemnity Insurance before the commencement of clinical work.
United Kingdom Council for Psychotherapy (UKCP)
Completion of the Guild of Psychotherapists Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy training qualifies trainees to join the UKCP-CPJA section as full members if they chose to join.
There are other professional organisations that some members choose to join, such as the British Psychoanalytic Council (BPC) or the College of Psychoanalysts (CP-UK) however application criteria would need to be met.
If you have specific questions not covered by the website, you can also request a telephone call with a member of the Training Committee who will be able to address these. Email our Training Administrator, Clare Grady to request this or call us.