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

* other social sciences

Our interests include:

* disability

* gender

* trauma

* abuse

* counselling children and young people

* sexualities

You can read more about our research interests and publications on our website.

Recent successful PhD topics have included:

* how children express emotions in aesthetic arts curricula in primary schools

* how suffering is transacted in therapeutic work with parents of children with disabilities; and

* how people with anorexia recover through psychotherapy