Training in family therapy

The Trust offers training in systemic family psychotherapy (also known as family therapy) up to MSc level. Successful completion of the MSc leads to registration as a systemic psychotherapist with the United Kingdom Council for Psychotherapy.

The full MSc course is four years, with the first two years available as separate stand-alone courses. All stages of the course are accredited by the Association of Family Therapy (AFT).

Couple Therapy for Depression Course

This five day course has been developed by the Working Group for Couple Therapy for Depression, stablished by the Department of Health. This was in order to offer an IAPT (Improving Access to Psychological Therapies) intervention to couples with depression.

Couple Therapy for Depression Training Course 2012 course details - Prudence Skynner

word doc Couple Therapy for Depression Training Course 2012 application form - Prudence Skynner

Year one: Foundation

The Foundation course is available as a day-time or evening programme. The day classes are run at Belmont Postgraduate Centre, Sutton Hospital and the evening classes are held at the Prudence Skynner Family Therapy Clinic at Springfield University Hospital.

This course offers an opportunity to:

explore family systems and life-cycle transitions
develop skills of engaging with and interviewing families
understand how therapeutic change happens.

Several therapeutic models are presented, including solution-focused and narrative approaches. The course enables therapists to think about their place in the system in a reflexive way. It can be taken as a stand-alone course or as the first step towards the MSc.

Foundations of Systemic Practice 2011/2012 (Sutton) - course details (PDF, 45.2KB)

Foundations of Systemic Practice 2011/2012 (Sutton) - application form (Word, 35KB)

Foundations of Systemic Practice 2012 (Prudence Skynner) - course details (Word, 29KB)

Foundations of Systemic practice 2012 (Prudence Skynner) - application form (Word, 33KB)

Year two: Intermediate

The Intermediate course takes place at the Prudence Skynner Family Therapy Clinic.

Year two emphasises the use of systemic theory and practice in clinicians' day-to-day work with families and networks. The accrediting panel said the course was "excellent and provides high-quality teaching and context for learning. Participants gave very positive feedback on how they valued the course's commitment to systemic work with families in the NHS, the flexibility and responsiveness of the teaching, and the diversity of teachers and students".

Intermediate systemic family therapy course details (Word 28KB)

Intermediate systemic family therapy application form (Word, 37KB)

Years three and four: MSc degree

The MSc is a collaboration between Prudence Skynner Family Therapy Clinic and the Institute of Family Therapy with the University of London (Birkbeck College). Live clinical supervision is undertaken at the Prudence Skynner Family Therapy Clinic, while some of the teaching takes place at the Institute of Family Therapy, which is situated in central London. Clinical placements are available in the Prudence Skynner Family Therapy Clinic and in a variety of Trust services.

More information

For further information on family therapy training in the Trust, please contact:

Annie Turner
Clinic Director
Email: annie.turner@swlstg-tr.nhs.uk

Noreen Rooney
Courses Administrator
Email: noreen.rooney@swlstg-tr.nhs.uk

Tel: 020 8682 6195.

Visit the Association for Family Therapy website.