Counselling Studies PhD

This PhD programme is an advanced research degree enabling students to conduct in-depth independent research on a topic of their choice, thereby making a significant and original contribution to knowledge in the field of counselling and psychotherapy.

Counselling and psychotherapy specialise in qualitative, reflexive and critical approaches to research, and have particular expertise in practice-based research that draws directly on practitioners' own therapeutic work, on the client's experience of therapy, and in narrative, reflexive and auto-ethnographic methods.

We are especially keen to encourage research concerned with the interface between counselling, psychotherapy and social, cultural and political life.

Our research portfolio is highly interdisciplinary, integrating concepts, practices and scholarship from counselling and psychotherapy, psychology, sociology, philosophy, education, cultural studies, health and social care, and other social sciences.

You will be assigned two supervisors with whom you will meet monthly. The second supervisor may be drawn from another discipline relevant to your research topic.

In the first year, you will attend epistemological and research methods courses. You will also attend and contribute to counselling and psychotherapy research seminars and School research student seminars throughout your studies, including the annual Counselling and Psychotherapy Postgraduate Student Research Conference.

All students are encouraged to present their research at national and international conferences and to publish their research findings in relevant journals. You are also welcome to attend other selected courses in counselling and psychotherapy, as well as courses provided by other subject areas in the School, and in related disciplines across the University.