PhD Counselling Studies
The PhD Counselling Studies programme is an advanced research degree enabling students to conduct in-depth independent research on a topic of their choice, thereby contributing to the knowledge and evidence base for counselling and psychotherapy.
Name | PhD Counselling Studies |
Start Date | September and January |
Mode of Study | 3 years full-time, 6 years part-time |
Programme Director | Fiona Murray |
Please check the postgraduate Degree Finder to see the specific entry requirements, start date and application deadlines.
The PhD programme is normally undertaken over three years full-time or six years part-time. On this programme, you will attend our core research courses and able to attend postgraduate seminar courses from across the College of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences and other relevant courses in the School of Health in Social Sciences. Your supervisor can advise you about the relevance of particular courses to your research.
Counselling, Psychotherapy and Applied Social Sciences is a small subject area, which specialises in qualitative, reflexive and critical research approaches. We can only admit research students whose proposed project lies within the scope of our research expertise. It is therefore very important that you find out about our research expertise and discuss your proposal with one of our supervisors before applying.
Audrey Neill | The use of fiction to develop our understanding of various character styles as conceptualised through characterological and psychoanalytic theories of personality |
Ajmer Wahiwala | Revisioning the Maternal Gaze: A study to discover how sight can be compensated for within relationship. |
Anita Rampat | Mental health models in prison, a prisoner’s perspective. |
Anjum Abbas Shah | An Islamic Understanding of Emotion; Developing Theory for Psychotherapy and Mental Health |
Barbara Erber | The purpose of this project is to study the experience of embodied presence and its relationship to feeling safe in theory and in the practice of Authentic Movement, hereafter referred to as AM (Bacon 2015, Pallaro ed. 1999). |
Buddhini Withana | Children’s mental health and wellbeing in Sri Lanka: the contribution of social and emotional skills that stem from culturally specific socialisation processes, and its relevance to universal frameworks of social and emotional learning |
Caren Christie | Intergenerational preparedness for Trauma? An Autoethnography. |
Chun Yeung Yu | The development of a culturally-grounded psychotherapeutic model based on the theoretical framework of pluralistic counselling in Hong Kong |
Dima Al Rayes | The Link Between Mindfulness and Mental Health, Incorporating Dialectical Behavioural Therapy Mindfulness Skills through the lens of Yogic Practices |
Dominica Hamilton Leahart | An Autoethnographic Exploration on Living and Practicing on the Autistic Spectrum |
Duncan Roebuck | How newly qualified therapists experience the transition into practice |
Ela Altin | Bilingual Psychotherapists’ Experiences of Conducting Bilingual Therapy with Families |
Gillian Fitzsimmons | Investigating gender identity during female to male transitioning in the perinatal period and how counselling can help. |
Georgi Gill | Articulating Uncertainty: exploring the role of multiple sclerosis patients’ autoethnographic poems in dialogue with medical teams |
Hassan Bishil | The influence of the body on the relationship with a family member diagnosed with Schizophrenia. |
Jamie Steinitz | The Disconnect Between the Body as it is Experienced and The Body as it Actually Is: Exploring the Relationship Between Childhood Trauma, Sensory Processing Issues, and Body Image Disturbances in Patients with Anorexia Nervosa |
Jay Myles | Darkest before dawn: a research-practitioner’s auto-ethnographic investigation into her own experience as a client in therapy |
Ji Won Kang | Deprived Grief: A South Korean Fathers’ Bereavement around losing their unborn baby |
Katherine Porter | An exploratory study of Bion’s concept of ‘attacks on linking’ and its effect on ‘learning from experience’ in young people in special schools, the impact for learning and the development of Self. |
Karen Kaufman | Community as its Own Entity of Support or Harm Concerning Trauma and Loss |
Keith Evans | Coming into Being: the significance of Pre- and Perinatal experiences on our relationality and meaningmaking processes throughout our lives |
Kelly Stewart | The Intergenerational Impact of Suicide |
Lucy Dixon | Writing trauma: An inquiry into the transformation of childhood relational trauma through reflective writing. |
Marie Meechan | A qualitative inquiry into the psychological effects of an unexplained infertility diagnosis and loss: A response to counselling intervention. |
Miriam Merin | A Good Enough (Alma) Mater: Exploring Self and Geography among Adult Survivors of Childhood Sexual Abuse on Campus |
Mia Livingston | The Anatomy of Recovery from Complex Trauma: An Autoethnography |
Mia Zielinska | Maternal Preoccupation and Trauma to the Mother’s Sense of Self: When Dyadic Development is Suspended, Delayed, or Regressed |
Moniq Mabasa Muyargas | Navigating and Negotiating Identity while Aging: Narratives of Aging Gay Men and Lesbians for Health Social Justice |
Mounira Aldousari | Being A Counsellor in Kuwait, Challenges, and Aspirations in the light of Stigma |
Olukemi Amala | Narratives from the wheelchair |
Peter Hellsten | Attachment trauma in men who engage in (self-)harming, high risk sexual behaviours (SHHRSB) with other men – A qualitative, phenomenological and intersubjective enquiry. |
Rhea Gandhi | Reclaiming lost histories in counselling training: A participatory action research initiative |
Sara Mollis | ‘Finding Some Love in the Blood’ - an autoethnographic research proposal |
Sharan Collins | The role of shame in the silence of trauma |
Sylvia Hillman | An inquiry into the adult experience of living and relating with ADHD |
Sydney Millman | Radically Observed Dysfunctional Grief during the COVID-19 Pandemic |
Why choose this programme?
Doctoral study provides the opportunity to carry out a substantial piece of research guided by expert supervisors. You will gain high-level research skills and a range of transferable skills tailored to various career pathways. The principal grounds for awarding a PhD degree are that it is an original work making a significant contribution to knowledge in the student’s field of study, and containing material worthy of publication.
A vibrant and inclusive research environment
The University of Edinburgh is a world-leader in research and innovation and an international centre of academic excellence. Students on this programme will become part of an active and diverse research community in the School of Health in Social Science and will have access to the wide-range of learning environments and outstanding resources that the University has to offer. Our postgraduate researchers work in close proximity to each other, enabling them to pool their expertise and knowledge to tackle complex challenges and push the boundaries of discovery. Students will be encouraged to engage with a wide range of seminars, talks, and events, and often have the opportunity to present their own research at national and international conferences. Our student-led postgraduate research blog provides a snapshot of the activities and events our PGR students organise and are involved in.
The expertise of our academics in Counselling and Psychotherapy specialise in qualitative, reflexive and critical approaches to research, and have particular expertise in practice-based research that draws directly on practitioners' own therapeutic work, on the client's experience of therapy, and in narrative, reflexive and auto-ethnographic methods.
We are especially keen to encourage research concerned with the interface between counselling, psychotherapy and social, cultural and political life.
PhD by Distance
There is also an opportunity to undertake this programme through our PhD by Distance option. The PhD by Distance is available to suitably qualified applicants in the same areas as our on-campus programmes: Clinical and Health Psychology, Counselling and Psychotherapy, Health in Social Science and Nursing Studies.
The programme allows students who are unable to commit to basing themselves in Edinburgh full time to study for a PhD in a field of Health in Social Science from their home country or city - however this is not intended to be a fully online distance learning programme.
Students enrolled on this programme will be expected to come to Edinburgh at least once per year of study to meet with their supervisors. The length and timing of these visits are negotiable but students should expect to spend at least two weeks at the University of Edinburgh during each year of study.
Find out more about the PhD by Distance
The School of Health in Social Science offers several fully funded MScR and PhD studentships each year. A variety of scholarships are available, which vary from full scholarships covering tuition fees and a stipend to cover living expenses, to partial scholarships.
Find out more about our scholarships and funding opportunities
Beyond the programme
A PhD from the University of Edinburgh enhances the career prospects of professionally qualified counsellors, psychotherapists and practitioners using counselling skills in related fields, such as health care, social work or education. Students with prior professional qualifications enhance their careers with the addition of highly developed conceptual, analytical and research skills.
It is also of interest to social scientists and researchers specialising in the study of health and illness, and the practice and cultural significance of the talking therapies.
Successful completion of the PhD opens up employment opportunities in a broad range of fields, including education, policy, research and development on health and illness, emotional health and well-being, and counselling, as well as academic positions in the field of counselling studies.
Further Study Opportunities
Students can return to the University to attend continuing professional development courses to support their ongoing professional development as counsellors and psychotherapists.