4 year Attachment Based Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy (ABPP)

2024 Applications Now Closed

To be the first to learn about 2025 applications, contact admin@thebowlbycentre.org.uk  and we will notify you when new information is released.

The outcome of this course is to become a United Kingdom Council for Psychotherapy (UKCP) registered attachment-based psychoanalytic psychotherapist.

This is an engaging, stimulating, robust and thought provoking clinical training course, which takes place at the weekends (every other week for 18 weekends) during term times, and is truly impressive in its breadth, scope, and depth, providing an opportunity to engage deeply with past and contemporary thinking in the field of psychotherapy and the social sciences as well as with contemporary and past shared clinical experience. It will provide you with the knowledge and skills to become registered with the United Kingdom Council for Psychotherapy (UKCP).

During the taught part of the course, you will engage with a wide range of fascinating theoretical material; undertake an 18 month Infant Observation, be involved in experiential group work, undertake presentations, be involved in group discussions, and start clinical work.

You will also have much opportunity to engage with your fellow trainee therapists with all their unique differences, with the course broadening your perspective on others and life in stimulating ways. Most importantly you will be engaging with others, both experienced practitioners, and those less experienced amongst your peers, all of whom will be alongside you in your personal development as you take this important journey towards developing clinically professionalism, competence and expertise. By the end of the course you will be surprised at how far you have come and how secure you now feel in your new therapist self with a solid understanding of preoccupied, avoidant, fearful avoidant and avoidant dismissive attachment patterns and find yourself able to work with transference, counter transference, the unconscious, dissociation, trauma, the body and an individual’s protective strategies.

Application Deadline: 30th June 2024

We recognise the importance of mourning, which we see as vital to the working through of issues of abandonment, emotional mis-attunements or neglect as well as trauma and abuse, whether sexual or physical. We value the fostering and encouragement of developing the true self within an authentic therapeutic relationship. Working through losses and disappointments are crucial to the development of a secure sense of self and the capacity to form and sustain intimate relationships. Both a strong sense of self and good attachment relationships are essential to managing stressful life experiences.

Understanding psychotherapy within the context of attachment relationships means that we at the Bowlby Centre see it as a co-operative venture between therapist and client. The aim is to develop a secure base from which to explore the unconscious and experiences of loss and trauma in the course of development. We do not regard these experiences as only being confined to a private world or to early life. Instead, we see attachment relationships between individuals as shaped by groups and society as a whole, over the life cycle.

We believe that the structures, pressures and discrimination in society have an impact on the individual and these need to be thought about and explored in the therapeutic space.

John Bowlby’s original development of attachment theory was promoted primarily by his concern to ensure social recognition for the central importance of attachment and the impact of loss and abandonment on early development. He was also concerned to strengthen the scientific foundations of psychoanalysis, emphasising the importance of basing our theories on research findings as well as clinical evidence. He recognised the need for practising a psychotherapy which can be demonstrated to be an effective contribution to mental health care. Since his original work, attachment theory has come to occupy a key position in this fast-developing scientific field, providing a link between psychoanalysis, developmental psychology, neurobiology, and the behavioural sciences.

Our therapists come from diverse backgrounds and we look to all sections of the community in welcoming course attendees, students and clients. We operate an equal opportunities policy in our work and in our ways of relating to each other. The understanding of intersectionality is woven into every seminar as well as separate modules.  We are committed to respecting and valuing difference and the training aims to take into account the impact of age, class, culture, disability, neurodiversity, gender, race and sexuality on both students and clients. Many people struggle against discrimination, racism, poverty and intolerance, and understanding this is an integral part of the training of our therapists.

Duration: 

Four Academic Years

Start Date:

September 2025

Delivered:

Mixed Online / In-Person

Course Fee: 

£5865(per year)

Who is the course aimed at?

All applicants must:
• Have undertaken at least one year of weekly psychotherapy with a psychodynamic or psychoanalytic psychotherapist
• Be prepared to study at a postgraduate level
• Be in twice weekly therapy with an attachment based psychoanalytic psychotherapist or a therapist registered with the British Psychoanalytical council (BPC) for a minimum of one year at the start of the training
• Have two references one professional and one personal indicating your suitability for training
• Be prepared to undertake a part-time six month mental health familiarisation placement (if required) prior to registration

What are the dates of the course? 2025-2026

2025 Autumn Term 1

  • • September 19th and 20th
    • October 3rd and 4th
    • *October 18th and 19th
    • November 7th and 8th
    • November 21st and 22nd
    • December 5th and 6th

2026 Spring Term 2 

  • • January 16th and 17th
    • January 30th and 31st
    • *February 14th and 15th
    • February 27th and 28th
    • March 13th and 14th
    • March 27th and 28th

2026 Summer Term 3 

  • • May 8th and 9th
    • May 22nd and 23rd
    • June 5th and 6th
    • *June 20th and 21st
    • July 3rd and 4th
    • July 17th and 18th

*Three weekends will be experiential group: October 18th and 19th, February 14th and 15th, June 20th and 21st. These are held on Saturdays and Sundays. There will be no Friday teaching on these weekends.

This is a Four Academic Year Course delivered on Fridays and Saturdays with three Sundays, one per term, in Year 1 only. Please look at the term dates for more detail.

Friday: 2:00pm – 5.15pm – Online
Saturdays 10:00 am – 5.15pm – In-Person
Experiential Weekends: Saturday and Sunday 10:00am – 4:00pm

Applicants will usually have two interviews and sometimes three. The interviews will be with a senior member of the Bowlby Centre usually from the Clinical Training Committee (CTC). The interviewer will explore each candidate’s readiness to train with The Bowlby Centre.

The interview fee is £120.

All applicants must:
• Have undertaken at least one year of weekly psychotherapy with a psychodynamic or psychoanalytic psychotherapist
• Be prepared to study at a postgraduate level
• Be in twice weekly therapy for the first year of the course, with an attachment based psychoanalytic psychotherapist or a therapist registered with the British Psychanalytical Council (BPC).
• Be prepared to undertake a part-time six month mental health familiarisation placement (if required) prior to registering.

Each teacher will give you written feedback
You will have one to one termly tutorials with your course tutor
Your supervisor will write an annual feedback on your progress
In years 1 and 2 you will have a minimum of one attachment essay to write (there is no grading of this essay)
You are required to write an Infant Observation paper
You are required to write a mental health familiarisation paper
In Year 2 you will be required to produce a portfolio to assess your readiness to begin clinical work. This will include two interviews with two different senior Bowlby members.
You are required to produce a portfolio for registration
You will be asked to present in seminars

  • To attend consistently and on time.
  • To maintain respect for and confidentiality of other participants contributions.
  • To operate within the values and policies and procedures of The Bowlby Centre.
  • To complete any pre-course reading or other preparation such as watching a webinar or listening to a podcast.
  • To achieve 80% attendance in each seminar to complete the course.

There are no formal exams. Students prepare presentations for seminar and complete written work.

Year one there is a requirement to be in personal therapy twice a week.

For the following years up to registration there is a requirement to be in therapy a minimum of once weekly.

  • The successful completion of the taught part of the course.
  • Meeting requirements for client work.
  • Completing a registration portfolio
  • It is recommended that all students wait for a minimal period of six months post taught before applying for registration.

You are required to work with;

    • One client for 18 months twice a week
    • One client for 18 months once a week
    • Five clients for a minimum of six months once a week

You will be required to have a training supervisor. They will supervise your clinical work. You are currently required to have one supervisory hour for every six client hours.

Our training includes an in-depth knowledge and understanding of attachment theory from Bowlby onwards as well as psychoanalytic theory from Freud onwards. We also cover the latest developments in trauma theory which includes knowledge and understanding of the latest findings in neuroscience.

Structure of the 4 year Attachment Based Psychanalytic Psychotherapy Clinical Training Course

The formal training and teaching lasts four years, is part-time and divided into two halves – the first two years being pre-Clinical and the last two years being clinical in focus. This means there is no client work until Year 3. These are the main strands:
1. Theoretical Seminars
2. Attachment Seminars
3. Infant Observation
4. Clinical Seminars
5. Personal and Professional development
6. Group work

The aim of these seminars is to help students gain a strong theoretical understanding from an historical perspective as well as current theory and practice. This seminar begins in the first term and continues throughout the training. The seminars cover psychoanalytic theory from Freud onwards and all the latest developments of trauma theory including neuroscience.

The aim of these seminars is to ground the training in attachment theory to enable students to gain a clear understanding of the attachment-based approach to clinical work. With theory in the pre-clinical part of the training and application of the theory in the clinical section of the training, these seminars will aim to embed the approach both implicitly and explicitly.

These seminars follow the development of attachment in the first two years of life. The aim of the Infant Observation seminars is to facilitate the development of a capacity for observation necessary for psychotherapeutic work and to gain an understanding of infant development with particular emphasis on the centrality of attachment to the development of a healthy sense of self. The observation itself continues for the first 18 months of the infant’s life.

These are a place for learning to present clinical work to peers and for the teacher to facilitate learning from the material presented. In addition to your clinical work with training clients you may use the opportunity to apply what you are learning to your current work as well as to your life prior to starting clinical work for the course. These start in Year 3.

The purpose of the Personal and Professional Development Seminars is to give students the opportunity to explore and integrate the values of The Centre and to prepare for work as an Attachment–based Psychotherapist. It is an opportunity to get to know each other better and to develop your understanding of intersectionality, power, privilege, difference and diversity. You will be given opportunities to begin developing a variety of professional skills that will be needed in the profession which you are joining, including setting up a private practice, practical themes, and the therapeutic techniques, problems and decisions that arise in clinical practice.

The aim of the experiential groups is to give each year group the opportunity to explore unconscious inner material with peers and to deepen your understanding of yourself on a more personal level. The extent to which we are self-aware has a deep impact on how well we attune to and understand our clients and this groupwork provides a space to deepen your knowledge of yourself.

The Course Year by Year

The outcome of this course is to become a United Kingdom Council for Psychotherapy (UKCP) registered attachment-based psychoanalytic psychotherapist

YEARS 1 AND 2: BROAD AIMS

• To provide a sound preparation for clinical practice as an Attachment-based Psychoanalytic Psychotherapist-in-Training
• To explore the origins of attachment-based psychoanalytic psychotherapy and its integration with contemporary developments in psychoanalysis
• To provide a secure introductory foundation and framework on which to build further layers of theory at greater depth and complexity
• To explore the links between theory and clinical practice
• To begin to prepare for working with uncertainty and the unknown, and to be able to hold the anxiety and tensions that are inevitable in clinical practice
• To develop an awareness of the complexity of working with difference not only reflected in our work with individuals but also in groups, organisations and society
• To develop a personal awareness of how patterns of care seeking and caregiving are impacted on by both secure and insecure patterns of attachment

YEAR 3 and 4: BROAD AIMS

At this stage you would have completed or nearly completed your infant observation and you are now ready to start your client work with the support of your training supervisor. You will have clinical seminars which explicitly address clinical work.

You will be required to take on two Blues clients or Blues equivalent clients if you are from outside London. Our Blues project is for people who are aged 18 years or over and who would not otherwise have access to psychotherapy because they are on benefits or a low income.

To consolidate and further the understanding of theory and its application to clinical practice with a focus on the impact of trauma

  • To develop the skills and techniques needed in the clinical situation
  • To learn from and communicate about clinical experience
  • To develop increased confidence in the ability to work with the unknown and to hold anxiety and tensions
  • To deepen an understanding of working with race, sexualities, social class, gender and gender diversities, age, different relationship patterns, and disabilities
  • To explore relationships with peers in more depth
  • To encourage students to plan for their own professional development and communication with the wider psychotherapeutic community

Psychoanalytic Theory

These seminars are designed to introduce students to two of the founders of psychoanalysis, Freud and Jung.

Attachment

These seminars cover the essential works of John Bowlby and other early attachment researchers like Ainsworth and Main.

Infant Observation

The observation of an infant from birth to 18 months linked to theories of infant development and clinical application to work with adults. Prior to starting your Infant Observation you will be required to apply and pay for a new DBS certificate through the Centre.  The fee for this is approximately £54.

Personal and Professional Development

A series of seminars exploring issues of power and privilege, difference and diversity around race, class, sexuality, gender and disability.

Experiential weekends

Over the course of 3 weekends (one per term) facilitators will work with the groups to explore students’ personal care seeking, caregiving and interest sharing patterns – and how the fear system, the sexual system and inner and outer worlds impact on these patterns.

If you do an internet search for Una McCluskey you will get a sense of why we think her model is congruent with our attachment-based training. Una currently runs her three days intensive groups twice yearly at the centre as a CPD short course. The key thing about these groups are that they are specifically structured to focus on how we, as professional care givers, successfully give care to our clients, and how we make sure that we attend to our own needs for care too.

This particular form of group work has been developed for professionals in the field who are interested in exploring the dynamics of caregiving and care-seeking. The groups have been developed to run intensively over two days and will therefore take place over three weekends per training year.

These groups are both structured – in that they encourage you to focus on a particular topic at any given time – but are also a free space, into which you can bring your own personal material. The areas that will be explored will be:

  • How you seek care
  • How you give care
  • Your internal environment and how it impacts on your ability to seek and give care
  • Your external environment and how it impacts on how you seek and give care
  • How your fear system impacts on your care giving and care seeking
  • Interest sharing/collegiality/relationship with peers
  • Sexuality (in the broader sense) and how that impacts on your attachment patterns

No interpretations on any of the material you share are given by the facilitators – and no interpretations between you as group participants are given. The principal aim of the groups is to explore how we ‘meet’ each other and not to analyse one another. We see this as a vital component to establishing a sense of security in the group from which you can all explore your own dynamics of attachment.

After each group students will be invited to write 500-1,000 words reflective account/reflective self-assessment of their experience on the group.

Psychoanalytic and Relational Theory

Introducing Klein, Mitchell, Fairbairn, Winnicott, Sullivan and Kohut and their relevance in understanding individual development and consequent impact upon attachment relationships. There is an emphasis on understanding the ways in which each theorist described the strategies adopted by the emerging human mind to deal with deprivation and trauma, and different approaches to clinical practice associated with each model.

Attachment 

Progressing from the foundations in year 1, these seminars focus on the clinical application of attachment theory and introduce students to contemporary developments in attachment.

Infant Observation

The observation of an infant from birth to 18 months linked to theories of infant development and clinical application to work with adults. This continues on from year one and brings the 18 months observations to an end.

Experiential Groupwork

Building on the introductory experiential weekends of Year 1, this is a facilitated personal development group with a focus on thinking about students’ impact on each other, how you relate to others and how you are relating to the individuals in the organisation throughout the training.
Preparation of your portfolio for becoming a psychotherapist in training PiT
Alongside your formal seminars you will be supported to produce a portfolio to demonstrate your readiness to start clinical work in Year 3. You will identify your first training supervisor and undergo two interviews to assess your readiness. You will be supported and guided throughout this process.

Trauma Theory

In this year the course will provide students with the opportunity to explore the impact of trauma on the developing self, incorporating contemporary developments in neuroscience. Much of the trauma theory will focus on dissociation.

Attachment

These seminars are clinical in nature and will provide the space to discuss the feelings, themes, problems and decisions that arise in clinical practice with people who have experienced trauma.

Personal and Professional Development Seminars

A series of seminars returning to and deepening students’ understanding around issues of power and privilege, difference and diversity around race, class, sexuality, gender and disability but with a more clinical focus.

Experiential group work

Building on the group in year 2, this continues to be a personal development group with a focus on thinking about students’ impact on each other. How you relate in a group, and how you are relating to the individuals in the organization through the training.

Trauma Theory continued

These seminars build on the three previous terms and are designed to deepen students’ understandings of the impact of trauma and the different frameworks of thinking about how to treat trauma.

Attachment/Clinical continued

These seminars are clinical in nature and will continue to provide the space to discuss the feelings, themes, problems and decisions that arise in clinical practice with people who have experienced trauma.

Personal and Professional Development

A series of seminars designed to explore ethics and safeguarding in clinical work.

Self-managed programme

The third term is organised by the student group who are given a budget and responsibility to invite speakers of their choice. This is designed to enable the student group to explore issues of particular interest or areas not otherwise covered by the curriculum and to be a transition between the taught course and continuing professional development.

Experiential group work

Building on the group in year 3, this continues to be a personal development group with a focus on thinking about students’ impact on each other, how you relate in groups, and how you are relating to the individuals in the organization through the training. There will also be space to think about the process of registration, the ending of the training and future opportunities in the centre outside the peer group.

Attachment relationships affect all aspects of people’s internal and external lives. From the very beginning our earliest childhood experiences shape us emotionally and physically, forming our identity, levels of security, our resilience, our ability to be playful or creative, our relationships and mental health. All people can benefit from learning about attachment theory and our belief is that attachment theory based psychanalytic psychotherapy is a positive and valuable contribution to the world.

Our approach to mental health is therefore based on our curiosity to understand the specific ways which make a particular person vulnerable, hurt or struggle to cope and how an individual relates to their emotional and physical pain, whether this is with attention, engagement, attunement, which implies a secure base or with amplifying, catastrophising or dismissiveness which implies anxiety and attachment trauma.

We inherently welcome, value and celebrate diversity. We seek to understand the reality of people from different ethnicities, ages, sexual orientations, gender identities, faiths, abilities and disabilities, neurominorities and socio-economic backgrounds. We recognise we have an ethical responsibility to do the work to ensure a safe, inclusive home for our psychotherapy community, trainees and the people they work with. Our teaching, training and information is high-quality, offered in small groups for strong relational practice.

Attachment relationships are formed and shaped in the real world, not only in our minds. We therefore believe that all real-life impacts must be part of the therapy and treated with respect, welcome, warmth, openness, and always with a readiness to interact and relate. In particular, we believe that it is vital that people who have undergone extreme traumatic experiences must have their reality validated and their ways to survive deeply respected, whether that be through addictions, compulsions or other ways of coping or self-protection. Above all, we believe that recognising our shared humanity is our shared secure base.

Our work is lived by and measured against our values. Our values are:

  • Compassionate
  • Attuning
  • Inclusive
  • Curious
  • Courageous
  • Transparent

In view of the important role that personal therapy plays in your development and training as a psychotherapist, we would usually expect you to have been in personal therapy for a minimum of one year with an attachment-based psychoanalytic psychotherapist or a psychotherapist who works from a psychodynamic perspective prior to starting the course. Ideally, this would be the year prior to and during your application to the training course, so that you have an established therapeutic relationship in place to support you through the process of application and the demands of beginning the training. Therapy continues at least until registration. Students must undertake a minimum personal therapy of:

  • Twice a week in Year One
  • Once a week from Years Two, Three and Four
  • Once a week for Post-taught students

We may advise a student to increase their personal therapy if the Clinical Training Committee (CTC) believes the student may need additional therapy to progress to the next part of their training. All ABPP students and trainees are strongly encouraged to stay in twice weekly where possible and to do more than the minimum required.

During the third year of the training, trainees will start client work and will have selected a supervisor whom they will enjoy working with. They will also need to have experience of supervision with at least one other supervisor during the training period in order to formulate a way of working within professional parameters. The supervision continues once weekly until registration. There is a requirement for one supervisory hour per six client hours of work.

Our approach to learning is based on insights from developments in adult education as well as attachment theory and psychoanalysis. We believe that adults learn best in a context in which they can be creative. Students need a secure base from which to explore and take risks. The organisation aims to provide an enabling and supportive environment, in which students can feel free to develop their own style of learning and presenting work – an environment which is both supportive and challenging.

Each student writes their own reflection on their development and learning which builds into part of their evidence for readiness for moving into their own clinical work.

We are conscious that students have different learning styles and aim to provide variety in our teaching styles to accommodate this difference within our taught programme.

During our taught course you will engage with a wide range of interesting, carefully selected theoretical material; undertake an 18 month Infant Observation and have the opportunity to prepare for, and discuss this in seminars;

Trainees usually take at least a further year to complete their portfolio for registration. The fee for any further, non-taught, year is substantially lower than that for the taught part of the training. Your course tutor will continue to support you during the non-taught part of your progress towards registration.

We are moving our teaching to weekend teaching with our aim that all student cohorts from intake 2024 onwards are taught on the same weekends to enhance the student body experience and offer greater opportunities to meet and socialise during breaks.

There is currently a requirement from the CPJA that all trainees undertake a part-time placement which enables them to gain experience of the field of mental health. If you have had previous or current experience in the field of mental health, for example you are working in a mental health setting you can apply for an exemption. The placement is expected to be part-time no less than 6 months at half a day a week.

Throughout the course and up until registration you can write your mental health familiarisation paper which covers certain criteria. Alongside the personal research and experience of a placement and clinical work we will aim to provide additional seminars/workshops covering some of the topics required for mental health familiarisation.

Throughout the course you will be exposed to papers which cite research findings. To ensure that you are able to critically evaluate the value of the research we will either provide an additional workshop in research methodology, or incorporate this in the curriculum. This aims not only to help you be a critical reader of research but also start to give you the skills to write your own papers, and undertake primary research.