Tavistock Relationships partners with Birkbeck, University of London to deliver postgraduate training
Published in Press Releases by Tavistock Relationships on September 18th 2023
Tavistock Relationships, the charity helping couples and individuals to have better relationships and train the next generation of couple therapists, has partnered with Birkbeck, University of London to deliver its postgraduate clinical training.
The partnership enables trainees to gain a University of London academic award and to access Birkbeck’s excellent student support services and resources. This will help make the charity’s training more accessible, including the postgraduate clinical training in Couple and Individual Psychodynamic Psychotherapy, which is also accredited by the BACP and the Psychoanalytic Couple Therapy Training, accredited by the BPC.
Andrew Balfour, CEO of Tavistock Relationships, explains:
“Tavistock Relationships has been working to support couples and families for over 75 years and is the UK’s leading organisation delivering specialist clinical training with a relationship focus.
“We are really excited about the potential of our new partnership with Birkbeck to increase the accessibility of our courses to a much wider group of participants. The partnership recognises our teaching staff as Honorary Teaching Fellows of the College, and gives our staff and pupils access to college resources.
“Increasing the accessibility and relevance of our training to a wider community is vital to our mission to advance relationship understanding and practice so everyone can get the help they need. We are looking forward to welcoming a very strong cohort of trainees in the new academic year, bringing more diversity to our student group, who are the TR clinicians, trainers and staff of the future.
“The demand for couples therapy continues to increase as more and more people seek relationship support, either to repair their relationship, or to separate with less conflict to avoid damaging their children.
“Our interventions also recognise that working with a couple to support individual challenges faced by one partner such as depression or dementia can be much more effective than working with the individual alone. Each year our graduates go on to work both for us, in their own practices or other agencies and organisations.
“As part of our drive to increase the ethnic diversity both of our therapy training and across the profession as a whole, we offer bursaries for Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic students for a number of our programmes, covering up to 100% of their cost.”
Clea McEnery-West, Director of Birkbeck Counselling Centre, adds:
“We welcome this distinguished partner institution which shares a reputation of excellence in counselling and psychotherapy training and embraces Birkbeck’s mission of widening participation.
“The partnership will enhance the portfolio of counselling and psychotherapy courses in the new Birkbeck Centre for Counselling, and the Tavistock Relationship courses will be of particular interest to those wishing to work with couples, as well as individuals, using a psychodynamic/psychoanalytic perspective."
Tavistock Relationships training courses in couples therapy and psychosexual therapy range from introductory up to clinical qualification. Clinical qualification and Diploma level courses are accredited by the relevant bodies, such as the British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy (BACP), the British Psychoanalytic Council and the College of Sexual and Relationship Therapists (COSRT).
Professional training with Tavistock Relationships takes up to four years, depending on qualifications already held on entry and is part-time so it can be done alongside family and work commitments. Qualified therapists with sufficient experience can complete their training in two years through the application of prior learning process.
For more information about couple and individual psychotherapy training at Tavistock Relationships, including our upcoming open evenings, go to Counselling & Psychotherapy Training and Courses - Tavistock Relationships or email
For more information about the Birkbeck Centre for Counselling, go to https://www.bbk.ac.uk/school/centre-for-counselling/about-us
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Notes for editors
Established in 1948, Tavistock Relationships is the charity helping individuals and couples to have better relationships www.tavistockrelationships.org