Counselling Studies (PhD) Doctor of Philosophy - PhD

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

Our 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.

We have a longstanding commitment to original empirical and theoretical research that engages critically and creatively with the practices of counselling and psychotherapy. 

We are especially keen to encourage research concerned with the interface between counselling and psychotherapy and social, cultural and political life, and research that draws directly on practitioners’ own therapeutic work.

The PhD offers the opportunity to gain advanced understanding of a range of research designs, approaches to data collection and data analysis within qualitative methodologies in the context of counselling and psychotherapy. The programme will enable you to develop your understanding of debates about research, evidence and practice in relation to counselling studies and related disciplines. 

Alongside taught courses, the PhD programme allows you to conduct an independent research project that makes a significant contribution to your chosen field of study and to further develop your research skills. Over the course of your studies, you will gain experience in designing and conducting research and writing up and critically reflecting on your work and that of others in the field.

Our academics in 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, critical, autoethnographic, creative, and arts-based methodologies.

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.