Counselling and psychotherapy

At Brighton we offer counselling and psychotherapy courses from the outset of your training up to MSc level.

Studying to be a therapist is a powerful and often emotional journey, but graduates from our courses go on to rewarding and stimulating careers across the public, private and voluntary sectors.

At Brighton we offer BACP-accredited Humanistic and Psychodynamic Postgraduate Diplomas, as well as a UKCP-accredited Psychotherapy MSc. We also offer an evening access course for those thinking of moving into the field.

Find out about our courses in this subject

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Why study counselling and psychotherapy at Brighton

Book cover for The Therapeutic Encounter

A cross-modality approach

While you must choose whether to follow the humanistic or psychodynamic approach at postgraduate level, you will share some lectures with students on the other course. You will benefit from exploring themes common to human development and understanding different approaches and theories in an open-hearted way.

Cover of book: Intersections of privilege and otherness in counselling and pyschotherapy

Practising and research-active staff

Your lecturers are all experienced psychotherapists with expertise and knowledge of specific modalities and concepts, from existentialism to attachment theory. They bring their years of training, therapy work and research into the classroom, basing their teaching in their real experience.

Active learning

You will learn through a mix of lectures exploring the theories, philosophies and key thinkers in the fields, as well as through experiential workshops and, on our postgraduate courses, through your clinical practice hours. Collaborative discussions and process groups with your peers are a vital element of our courses.

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UK Council for Psychotherapy

Find out about different types of therapy. For example, psychodynamic counselling aims to expose the contents of a client's unconscious to make them aware of any underlying psychological conflicts, whereas he humanistic approach draws from the tenets of existentialism and gives primacy to the individual's capacity for self-determination. The UKCP can help you discover the different modalities.

Interior of Checkland Building with lots of plants

School of Humanities and Social Science

Find out about the school in which our counselling and psychotherapy courses are based – and you’ll be learning on our Falmer campus, just north of Brighton city centre.

Courses

Postgraduate

Psychodynamic Counselling and Psychotherapy PGDip

Humanistic Counselling and Psychotherapy PGDip

Psychotherapy MSc

Undergraduate (Level 6 20-credit module)

Developing a Therapeutic Relationship and Counselling Skills module

What’s happening at Brighton?

Read our counselling and psychotherapy courses FAQs

Wondering whether to apply for the Postgraduate Diploma in Humanistic or Psychodynamic Counselling, whether you need to do a placement, or be in therapy while you study?

Lecturers’ study reveals complex response by LGBTQ+ people and mental health struggles in the UK’s ‘gay capital’

The two-year project led by University of Brighton researchers Dr Zoë Boden-Stuart and Dr Nick McGlynn asks ‘Does living in Brighton make for LGBTQ+ happiness?

Artists with autism work with the University

Local autistic artists have opened up about their experiences of loneliness through a series of animated videos produced in partnership with University of Brighton.

Black History Month events

University of Brighton lecturers including Dr Dwight Turner who teaches psychotherapy and Dr Yaa Asare whose research is in the field of race, ethnicity and identity are among academics from across the country giving a series of talks recognising and celebrating Black history.