Counselling Studies MSc (Res)

This is a postgraduate degree designed to provide research training in counselling and psychotherapy and allows you to work on research throughout the year whilst also taking taught courses that will enhance your research and knowledge. Successful completion of the MScR requires a dissertation, in the form of a report of original research work or a PhD proposal. The two dissertation options should be discussed with your supervisor to agree the best route.

The MScR Counselling Studies programme provides students with a comprehensive understanding of research design, data collection, and data analysis for research in the field of counselling and psychotherapy. 

The programme offers the possibility to work with and be supervised by expert academics whose background in both therapeutic practice and research is compatible with the student's proposed area of research. It offers an advanced education to students interested in developing research skills, including qualified counselling and psychotherapy practitioners and social science researchers.

This research degree provides the opportunity to do a substantial piece of research in an area linked to counselling and psychotherapy and develop excellent research skills in the process. It enables students to conduct in-depth independent research on a topic of their choice, thereby contributing to the advancement of knowledge and evidence base for counselling and psychotherapy worldwide.

Our academics in Counselling and Psychotherapy specialise in qualitative, reflexive and critical approaches to research. They 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, autoethnographic, critical, arts-based, and creative methodologies.

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