Master of Arts in the Psychotherapy of Relationship Mentoring
at Technological University Of The Shannon
2-Year, part-time
The M.A. programme (90 credits) is designed to advance the relationship development skills and to expand the practice of qualified Relationship Mentors, Counsellors and Psychotherapists who, presently, operate mainly within the holding worlds of family and school.
Course participants will be trained to work with individuals who have experienced major childhood adverse experiences which have manifested in chronic anxiety, deep depression, suicidal behaviour, self-harming, addictions, and psychosomatic illnesses. Development of therapeutic skills to work with couple conflict and with distressed children and adolescents will also be addressed. The development of programmes on the prevention of adverse experiences in childhood and adulthood will also be included in this module.
The aim also is to equip the participants to work – with individuals and groups – within the wider holding worlds of community, workplace, business, and social policy. A particular focus is on working with those in leadership and managerial positions so that they may attain consciousness of the key processes involved in creating the kind of psychological safety that enables individuals to emerge from the unconscious world of protectiveness into the world of consciousness. A fundamental tenet of Co-Creational Relationship Mentoring practice is that conscious awareness of one’s own story, and the unconscious protectors that individuals necessarily and wisely create in the face of adverse experiences, is the key to reducing stress, conflict and suffering in our various holding worlds. Conscious awareness enables individuals to live openly and authentically, taking ownership and responsibility for their relationship with Self and others, creating clear boundaries around their own separate and unique presence while respecting the other’s also unique and separate presence. Leaders and managers could become ambassadors for this kind of conscious living in their different holding worlds, the culture of which they play such an important part in creating.
Participants in the M.A. programme will be enabled to identify the particular unconscious and conscious relationship dynamics, relationship patterns, and relationship considerations that arise in different settings – for example, within a community-based voluntary organization, within a corporate workplace, within a school (teachers, parents, students, school management), within a sporting organization, within a religious setting, within a health and social services setting, within a political setting. Based on their realizations and knowledge of the different issues involved in different relationship settings, the participants will be trained to work on a one-to- one and group basis and develop programmes specifically geared to the needs of these different settings.
An important aspect of the M.A. programme will be to further develop the capacity of the participants to read and critically evaluate research findings in the fields relevant to their profession. Participants will also study different evaluation procedures – particularly those in use or being developed in psychotherapy/counseling/coaching – so that those procedures that might best capture what emerges from attendance with a co-creational counsellor or psychotherapist may be identified and put into practice.
Continuing Personal Reflection (CPR) is the defining characteristic of Co-Creational Relationship Mentoring practice, and reflective practice will be a theme that runs right through the M.A. programme. Reflective practice will be encouraged and supported through participation in regular facilitated small-group sessions as well as through one-to-one sessions with the individual participant’s Shared-Vision Practitioner. Participants will be supported in journalling – or in the use of some other procedure that might fit better with the individual participant – the outcomes of their reflections.
This programme is offered on a part-time basis and modules will be taught over 2 years and involve face-to-face experiential learning. Learners will be expected to attend college one day per week. It is a mandatory requirement of this programme that participants be in current employment or engaged in a community or voluntary setting to apply. Employment can be private practice, voluntary, paid, or unpaid, full-time, or part-time. Typically, programme participants will be required to draw upon their current or past workplace experience for the purposes of in-class discussion, analysis, and assessment.
It is proposed to offer an Embedded Award of a Postgraduate Diploma in Arts in The Psychotherapy of Relationship Mentoring and students could apply for this award on completion of 60 credits of the M.A. Programme in The Psychotherapy of Relationship Mentoring (60 credits to exclude the 30 credit Research Thesis Module).
The following is a description of the M.A. programme modules:
Module 1 on The Science and Art of Co-Creational Psychotherapy addresses the key skills required for practice and the clinical and research bases to the practice. (10 credits)
Module 2 on Self-Reflection and Shared-Vision Practice is focused primarily on the personal development of the psychotherapist and on her/his professional work with individuals and organizations. The latter examination is carried out through on-going Shared Vision with a Shared-Vision Practitioner who is a fully validated Relationship Mentor and specially trained as a Shared-Vision Practitioner (validation as being “fit for practice” is done through the Mentors’ Professional Organization – the Irish Association of Relationship Mentors CLG; IARM). The Shared-Vision Practitioner provides a shared safe space for the counsellor/psychotherapist where together they can consider the practitioner’s degree of consciousness when working with an individual or a group and the depth and breadth of the counselling or psychotherapy provided. (10 credits)
Module 3 on the Creation of Psychological Safety in Different Holding Worlds is designed for course participants to develop the core skills of creating psychological safety so that relationships within a particular holding world find a new co-creational grounding where members listen, support, and encourage themselves and each other into conscious selfhood and wholeness. (10 credits)
Module 4 on Research Methods – Implementation Science and Evaluation is focused on developing an informed reading of the research literature and identification of “best fit” of a research design and its implementation to examining the effectiveness of Co-Creational psychotherapeutic practice. (5 credits)
Module 5 on Conscious Leadership and Management addresses the application of the approach to leaders and managers who play such a pivotal role in the creation of organizational climates. (10 credits)
Module 6 on the Development of Advanced One-to–One Co-Creational Psychotherapeutic Skills aims to extend the skills of those psychotherapists who completed the Higher Diploma training to working with individuals (adults and children/teenagers) from all the different holding worlds in the areas of hallucinations, paranoia, depression, delusions, obsessional and compulsive behaviors, self-harming, addictions, psychosomatic illnesses, and couple conflict. (15 credits)
Module 7 Research Thesis (30 credits)
COMMENCEMENT:
Next intake in October, 2022
VENUE:
Thurles campus, Technological University of the Shannon (TUS)
Classes will be delivered on Fridays 10.00 – 5.10 p.m. along with some weekend workshops.
FURTHER INFORMATION:
Caroline Coughlan at Dr. Tony Humphreys office
Tel: 021-4642394 or 086 1730012 (10.00 a.m. – 4.00 p.m. Monday to Thursday)
Email: tony@tonyhumphreys.ie
https://lit.ie/en-ie/courses/master-of-arts-psychotherapy-of-relationship-mento