ECPS Post-Qualifying Certificate in Psychodynamic Couple Counselling

This course provides a thorough grounding in the theory and practice of psychodynamic counselling as it applies to working with couples. It is designed for qualified psychodynamic counsellors and psychotherapists who wish to extend their clinical thinking and skills to encompass the particular dynamics of working with a couple. Applicants do not need prior experience of working with couples. Acceptance onto the course is subject to interview.

Course Structure

The course is classroom based and takes place at the ECPS Training Centre in Enfield Town.

Sessions are held on one Thursday per month for ten months, starting September 2026 and ending July 2027.

Applications are considered on a rolling basis and the start date may be adjusted to ensure a viable cohort.

Each monthly session has three parts:

• 10.15am – 11.45am — Theoretical seminar, structured around participant presentations of the assigned papers

• 12.00pm – 1.30pm — Clinical seminar, centred on experiential and clinical skills work using roleplay

• Supervision (online) — participants choose one of two groups: 3.15pm – 4.45pm on the Thursday of the course, or 5.15pm – 6.45pm a fortnight later

The supervision groups are led by Richard White and attended by practising couple therapists presenting their clinical work.

Participants take part in the discussion, and may bring couple work of their own.

Clinical Work

The course does not include a clinical placement, and taking on a couple is not a requirement. Where ECPS has suitable couples available, participants may be offered the opportunity to take one on, but this cannot be guaranteed. Participants who work with couples during the course, whether referred by ECPS or seen in their own practice, will receive the same supervision as noted above. Clinical material may be brought to the course supervision groups.

Couples Course Description 26/27

1. Course Content The course runs for ten months, with one session per month. Each month focuses on a discrete clinical and theoretical theme: 1 The couple relationship — the psychoanalytic understanding of partner choice and the couple as a unit of mind
2. Assessment — approaches to assessment, and the meaning of “good enough” in couple therapy
3. Establishing the treatment — engaging the couple, setting up the analytic frame, early technique
4. Unconscious processes — unconscious communication, container/contained dynamics, case material
5. Projective processes — projection, introjection, projective identification, hate and aggression in the couple
6. Transference and countertransference — individual and joint transference, the Oedipal dimension in couple work
7. Narcissism — narcissistic object relating, psychic space, transitional phenomena in the couple
8. Sexuality — the dynamics of sexual desire, sexual disorder, addressing sexual issues clinically
9. Specific clinical challenges — affairs, divorce, the therapist’s self
10. Endings — the aims of couple therapy, working through and termination

Course Requirements

• Attendance and participation
• Completion of all assignments
• A final essay of 3,500 words, due at the end of the summer break, which must be passed. Essay Question: Pick a relationship from a television programme or film and write about what you think is going on. Describe the Couple Fit. Pay attention to patterns of projection, transference & narcissistic exchange. Why do you imagine they have come for therapy? What do you think it would be like to be in the room with them? Illustrate your work with verbatim (make sure you’re writing about something available on YouTube, Netflix, Amazon Prime or terrestrial catchup). Each participant meets with a tutor to discuss their essay as part of the assessment process

Entry Requirements

Applicants must hold a qualification or registration as a psychodynamic counsellor or psychotherapist with an established psychodynamic training centre, and must be in practice with an established caseload of individual patients. Acceptance onto the course is subject to interview. The interview considers the applicant’s psychological mindedness, their understanding of what couple work involves, and their reasons for wanting to undertake it.