Module Directory

This module runs over two terms. The first part of the module will teach you how to use psychosocial and psychoanalytic methods to conduct your research for your dissertation. It will introduce a range of empirical and conceptual approaches to doing research in the field of psychosocial and psychoanalytic studies and will examine how specific methods such as interviewing, ethnography, case studies or feminist methodologies can be used to examine complex, relational or unconscious phenomena of psychic and social life.

The second part of the module will focus more strongly on your independent research project which will be the basis for your dissertation. The module will offer two intensive workshop days with sessions on how to organize the research and writing of your dissertation as well as sessions on how to develop your career after graduation.

The aims of this module are:

• To provide main foundations in psychosocial and psychoanalytic research methods.


• To foster academic research skills such as referencing, writing abstracts, conducting literature reviews, and the organisation of critical arguments.


• To develop oral presentation skills.


• To foster critical thinking applicable in the Dissertation and other MA modules.


• To give guidance on further academic and professional career paths.


• To demonstrate intellectual independence and originality by choosing your own subject of study and defining its nature and scope.


• To experience the process of producing knowledge and conducting independent enquiry in a specific area of interest to you.


• To consolidate your written communication and intellectual skills by presenting the results of your research in a clearly written, cogently argued, logically structured and properly referenced way.


• To pull together the learning and experiences from the course and apply them to a topic of your choice.


• To develop greater confidence in the flexible application of psychosocial and psychoanalytic understanding.

By the end of the module, students will be expected to be able to:

1. Undertake a substantial research enquiry in the respective fields of their specific MA programme.


2. Confidently choose, design and implement appropriate empirical and/or theoretical research methods to support their own research enquiry.


3. Give a clear exposition of their Dissertation topic in a 10-minute oral presentation.


4. Engage in a substantial critical and independent analysis of literature relevant to their enquiry and analysed data emerging from their research.


5. Show evidence of critical thinking in their work.


6. Present research work in a clear, readable, and accurate manner.


7. Show a broad awareness of some of the challenges associated with interdisciplinary research in the context of psychoanalytic and psychosocial studies and analytical psychology.

Skills for your Professional Life (Transferable Skills)

By the end of this module, students will be expected to develop the following key and employability skills:

1. Research and methods.


2. Academic writing.


3. Oral presentation.


4. Critical thinking.


5. Qualitative research methods.


6. Creativity and innovative thinking.


7. Project management skills.

This module will be delivered via:

• One 2-hour online seminar per week (autumn term).
• Two workshop days each of which consists of three 1.5-hour seminars.
• One library workshop.
• Individual supervision.