Overview

Our training is well respected, accredited by the British Psychoanalytic Council (BPC) and is delivered by experienced psychotherapists, many of whom trained with us. Our venue is also home to Orchard Street Therapy Rooms, so we offer a collegiate atmosphere where you will have opportunities to interact with practising psychotherapists as well as other trainees.

A core component of our clinical training is the training therapy requirement at a frequency of twice weekly for the psychodynamic training and thrice weekly for the psychoanalytic training. This does make the personal therapy aspect of our trainings more expensive than the once-weekly requirements of some other psychotherapy training. However, we find that this is an essential foundational experience for deeper presence, engagement and containment in longer-term psychodynamic and psychoanalytic work.

Training pathways

For those wishing to complete a full psychotherapy training we offer two distinct pathways in psychoanalytic or psychodynamic psychotherapy. If you are unsure which pathway to follow, we’d recommend visiting the BPC website as it provides more information, including a brief explanation of the differences between psychodynamic and psychanalytic psychotherapy, or you can contact admissions@sipsychotherapy.org.

If you have no, or limited, previous experience of psychoanalytic theory we would encourage you to complete our introductory course first.

Both the psychodynamic and psychoanalytic training pathways have distinct entry requirements as detailed on the relevant training page.

We do recognise that some applicants may have previous learning equivalent to our Fundamentals of Psychoanalytic Thought & Practice courses and others may qualify for a ‘modified entry’ to the clinical training. Please see the relevant training page for more information and contact us before you apply if you think you can evidence equivalent learning.

Benefits of training with us

• Training is delivered in small groups with seminars scheduled to fit around work commitments
• Most training fees include access to PEP-Web, the industry leading online library of psychoanalytic texts
• Clinical training fees also include an annual subscription to the British Journal of Psychotherapy
• Access to an extensive collection of books and journals through SIP’s Library
• All clincial trainees are automatically given Student Associate membership with SIP, making them eligible for trainee membership with the BPC
• Our Consultation & Referral Service allows us to provide training patients referrals to trainees
• A limited bursary fund is available to trainees, by application, to top up the fee paid to by their training patient if the training patient is on a low income and unable to afford the usual fee
• We have a Placement Co-ordinator for trainees who require additional psychiatric experience or wish to see patients in an agency setting
• SIP manages Orchard Street Therapy Rooms and offers clinical trainees sole use of room 6, free of charge, for up to 6 hours per week
• Pre-clinical and clinical trainees are matched with a personal tutor with whom three meetings per year are included in the training fee