Introductory description

Students on the Psychotherapist training route have to complete a Mental Health Pathway (alongside the ACP), as directed by UKCP accreditation requirements for trainee Psychotherapist. This module, which is taught solely online comprises:

Seven Saturdays or Sundays online where experts in psychiatry, psychology, mental health and general practice share their expertise and experience.
-30 hours of psychiatrically informed Mental Health work-based learning.
-A portfolio based on all learning about mental health during the year as well as relevant prior learning.

This module is taught online to enable the range of expert speakers inputting to the programme from around the country to participate - which is a crucial part of the module delivery. This also complements the face to face weekly input on the ACP and enables both a Hybrid model of delivery in line with the scope given for effective delivery of teaching by the University, as well as affording learners the opprtunity to join the sessions on a Saturday more easily
while they complete the onerous profesional requirements of this training.

Students on the Psychotherapeutic Counsellor training route will be able, and encouraged, to attend the Mental Health Pathway weekend events to support their learning and mental health knowledge though this will not be mandatory (and they will not be required to do the MHF Report or work based learning hours).

Module aims

Outline syllabus

This is an indicative module outline only to give an indication of the sort of topics that may be covered. Actual sessions held may differ.

Classification and Diagnosis

Structure of Mental Health Provision

Depression and diet

Psychiatric diagnoses

Suicide Risk and Coroners Courts

The Personality Inventory for PiCD.

MHF Sex offending and Transcultural Psychiatry

Transcultural Psychiatry- Cultural Difference, Universalism and Social Psychiatry in the Age of Decolonisation

Learning outcomes

By the end of the module, students should be able to:

• Demonstrate a robust understanding of psychiatric, and related, professional assessments, procedures, knowledge and ways of working with complex mental health needs.
• Demonstrate a consistent capacity to recognise severely disturbed clients and understand when the psychotherapist should seek other professional advice.
• Convey the capacity to assess and respond to the range of responses to shock and trauma, bereavement and psychological crisis and differentiate these from severe mental illness.
• Critically and comparatively evaluate psychiatric and psychotherapeutic approaches to working with clients who present significant and complex mental health needs.

Indicative reading list

Bentall, R.P. (2004). Madness explained: psychosis and human nature. Penguin Books. Main Library RC 454.B3 (7 print copies available)

Bollas, C. (2015). When the Sun Bursts: The enigma of Schizophrenia. Yale University Press. (Availability online from the library by November 2022).

Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders – Version V. Six print copies available https://encore.lib.warwick.ac.uk/iii/encore/record/C__Rb2661399

Geddes, J.r., Andreasen, N.C., Goodwin, G.M. (2020). New Oxford Textbook of Psychiatry. Oxford University Press (3rd Edition) (Online availability)

Huprich, S.K. (Ed.). (2022). Personality Disorders and Pathology: Integrating clinical assessment and practice in the DSM-5 and ICD-11 Era. American Psychological Association. (Online availability)

World Health Organization. International Classification of Diseases 11th Revision. ICD-11 (Online) https://icd.who.int/en.

Subject specific skills

Students should have the opportunity to develop:

• Skills in assessing and responding to the range of responses to shock and trauma, bereavement and psychological crisis and differentiate these from severe mental illness.
• The capacity to recognise severely disturbed clients and understand when the psychotherapist should seek other professional advice.
• An understanding of the procedures used in psychiatric assessment and liaison with other professionals involved in mental health.
  *The ability to critically reflect on their experience of mental health settings and learning from psychiatrically oriented work experience and expertise, and effectively apply this to their own knowledge and practice.

Transferable skills

• Evaluating their own achievement and that of others;

• Interpersonal skills: Listening, empathy and dialogue;

• Self-direction and effective decision making in complex and unpredictable situations;
• Independent learning and the ability to work in a way which ensures continuing professional development;
• Critically to engage in the development of professional/disciplinary boundaries and norms
  (The below are from relevant QAA subject doc. 4.9, 4.10):
• Ability to form good, supportive, challenging and trusting relationships with others in which sensitive personal material can be considered
• Capacity to tolerate the process of challenge, self-reflection and change

• The ability to explore and informally research the backdrop to relevant areas of professional knowledge and skills and convey this in written and verbal forms.