Professional Diploma in Clinical Psychology & Mental Health- February Intake

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Format: Live-online Lecturer Led Classes (Virtual-Classroom) via Zoom

Duration: 1 Evening Every Week 6pm to 9pm

Length: 10 Weeks

Online Live Attendance: 30 Hours

Self-Directed Learning: 30 Hours

Total CPD Credits: 60 Credits

Assessment: Written Assignment +/- Viva Voca Assessment

Award: Accredited Professional Diploma

Course Accreditation

• • • Professional Development Consortium

    • Provider of Excellence

    • CPD Standards Office

    • Irish Counselling & Psychotherapy Association (ICPA)​

Course Description​

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The Professional Diploma in Clinical Psychology & Mental Health Practice is designed for professionals who wish to deepen their understanding of psychological distress and strengthen their practical skills in working with adults and young people. The course provides a solid grounding in key principles of clinical psychology, including models of mental health and illness, assessment, formulation, and evidence-based intervention.

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Learners explore the nature, presentation, and impact of common mental health difficulties such as anxiety, depression, trauma, personality-related difficulties, psychosis, and co-occurring issues like substance use. Attention is given to risk, safeguarding, and ethical decision-making, ensuring that participants can work safely and responsibly within their professional roles.

Across the programme, you will develop the ability to think psychologically about the individuals, families, and systems you work with. You will learn how to gather and interpret information, understand what might be maintaining a person’s difficulties, and consider appropriate pathways to care, including multidisciplinary and community-based supports. Reflective practice is a core focus, helping you to integrate theory with your own values, experience, and professional context.

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Teaching typically combines lectures, workshops, skills practice, and guided independent learning. Case examples and scenarios are used to bring ideas to life and to build confidence in applying knowledge to real-world situations.

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This diploma is particularly relevant for those working in health, social care, counselling, community and voluntary services, education, and related fields. By completion, you will have enhanced insight into clinical psychology perspectives, improved competence in mental health practice, and a stronger foundation for collaboration with specialist services or for further postgraduate training in psychology, psychotherapy, or related disciplines. Graduates leave the course with a clearer professional identity, a shared language for talking about mental health, and practical tools they can use immediately to support service users, contribute to care planning, and advocate for psychologically informed services in their organisations.

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Learning Outcomes

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On successful completion of the Professional Diploma in Clinical Psychology & Mental Health Practice, learners will be able to:

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Knowledge and Understanding

1. Explain the scope, purpose, and core functions of clinical psychology across common settings (primary care, community, specialist services) and differentiate clinical psychology from related professions and roles.

2. Describe and compare key frameworks for understanding psychological distress, including bio-psycho-social, recovery-oriented, and trauma-informed models.

3. Summarise the presentation, maintaining factors, and functional impact of common mental health difficulties, including anxiety, depression, trauma/PTSD, personality-related difficulties, psychosis, and co-occurring substance use.

4. Critically discuss the uses and limitations of diagnostic systems (DSM/ICD) and apply psychologically informed alternatives (formulation-led practice) where appropriate.

5. Outline the indications, common side effects, and limitations of major classes of psychotropic medication and explain how physical health factors (sleep, pain, chronic illness) interact with mental health.

Clinical and Applied Skills

1. Demonstrate core clinical interviewing skills, including rapport-building, active listening, collaborative questioning, and sensitive exploration of risk and safeguarding concerns.

2. Elicit and document a structured psychosocial history and conduct a basic mental state examination (MSE) appropriate to the learner’s professional context.

3. Undertake initial risk screening for suicide, self-harm, harm to others, and safeguarding, and develop an appropriate immediate response plan, including safety planning and referral/escalation pathways.

4. Develop and communicate a coherent, person-centred clinical formulation using recognised approaches (e.g., 5Ps, CBT formulation), identifying precipitating and perpetuating factors, strengths, and protective supports.

5. Apply evidence-based, structured interventions and skills-based strategies (e.g., CBT-informed approaches such as cognitive restructuring, behavioural activation/activity scheduling, graded exposure, grounding, and distress tolerance) in a way that is safe and appropriate to scope of practice.

6. Select and adapt interventions to client factors (developmental stage, culture, communication needs, neurodiversity, readiness for change, complexity, and risk level), while maintaining a collaborative stance and realistic goals.

7. Establish, maintain, and repair the working alliance using micro-skills (reflection, summarising, immediacy, purposeful silence), effective contracting, boundary management, and informed consent.

Professional, Ethical, and Reflective Practice

1. Apply ethical principles (autonomy, beneficence, non-maleficence, justice) to clinical decision-making, including confidentiality, record-keeping, data protection, safeguarding, and responding to complaints or dilemmas.

2. Demonstrate psychologically informed professionalism by recognising role limits, using supervision appropriately, and making timely referrals when specialist assessment or intervention is indicated.

3. Collaborate effectively with multidisciplinary and community supports by interpreting relevant reports/care plans and producing clear professional communication (e.g., referral letters, concise case notes, and structured summaries).

4. Integrate reflective practice to evaluate personal values, assumptions, and responses to clinical work, and implement strategies to reduce vicarious trauma, compassion fatigue, and burnout.

5. Present an integrative case summary that links assessment data to formulation, risk considerations, intervention planning, outcomes, and reflective learning, consistent with professional and ethical standards.

Outcomes for Practice Impact

1. Advocate for psychologically informed approaches within the learner’s organisation by articulating a shared language for mental health, recovery, and trauma-informed care and contributing to care planning and service-user support in a responsible manner.

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​Course Layout

Class 1 – Foundations of Clinical Psychology & Mental Health Practice

Focus: Orientation, core concepts, professional identity

• What is clinical psychology? – history, models and settings

• The bio-psycho-social and trauma-informed frameworks

• Mental health vs mental illness; recovery and resilience models

• Roles and limits of the clinical practitioner (scope of practice)

• Overview of key therapeutic approaches (CBT, psychodynamic, humanistic, integrative)

• Intro to reflective practice, supervision and personal development work

Class 2 – Assessment, Case History & Clinical Formulation

Focus: Understanding the client and their context

• Clinical interviewing skills: building rapport, active listening, questioning

• Taking a psychosocial history and mental state examination (MSE)

• Risk screening (suicide, self-harm, harm to others, safeguarding)

• Use and limits of diagnostic systems (DSM/ICD)

• From information to understanding: case formulation (5P model, CBT formulation, etc.)

• Writing concise assessment notes and communicating findings

Class 3 – Core Therapeutic Skills & The Working Alliance

Focus: Relationship and micro-skills in practice

• The therapeutic relationship: empathy, congruence, unconditional positive regard

• Micro-skills: paraphrasing, summarising, reflection, immediacy, silence

• Boundaries, contracting and informed consent

• Managing resistance, ambivalence and ruptures in the alliance

• Beginning, maintaining and ending sessions effectively

• Cultural humility and power dynamics in the therapy room

Class 4 – Evidence-Based Interventions I: CBT, Behavioural & Skills-Based Approaches

Focus: Structured interventions and skills teaching

• Core CBT model (thoughts–feelings–behaviours–body)

• Cognitive techniques: thought records, cognitive restructuring, behavioural experiments

• Behavioural techniques: exposure, activity scheduling, graded task assignment

• Relaxation, breathing, grounding and distress-tolerance skills

• Psychoeducation: explaining models and normalising experiences

• Adapting CBT techniques to different presentations and abilities

Class 5 – Working with Anxiety, Stress & Related Conditions

Focus: Common presentations in mental health practice

• Understanding anxiety: physiology, cognition and behaviour

• Generalised Anxiety, Panic, Social Anxiety, Phobias – core characteristics

• Stress, burnout and adjustment difficulties

• Assessment and formulation of anxiety problems

• Brief, structured interventions (CBT, exposure, mindfulness-based techniques)

• When anxiety masks other conditions (depression, OCD, personality difficulties)

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Class 6 – Working with Mood, Self-Harm & Suicide Risk

Focus: Low mood, depression and risk management

• Understanding depression and low mood: models and maintaining cycles

• Assessment of mood disorders: differential considerations (bipolar, mixed states)

• Suicide and self-harm: myths, risk factors and protective factors

• Conducting a suicide / self-harm risk assessment and safety planning

• Crisis intervention principles and referral pathways

• Supporting families and carers around risk and relapse prevention

Class 7 – Trauma, PTSD & Complex Presentations

Focus: Trauma-informed clinical practice

• Types of trauma: single event, developmental, complex and intergenerational trauma

• Neurobiology of trauma and the window of tolerance

• PTSD symptoms vs complex trauma presentations

• Stabilisation and grounding before trauma processing

• Working safely with dissociation, flashbacks and triggers

• Vicarious trauma, compassion fatigue and practitioner wellbeing

Class 8 – Personality, Relationships & Interpersonal Dynamics

Focus: Longer-term patterns and relational issues

• Personality development and major theoretical perspectives

• Personality disorders – overview, controversies and stigma

• Attachment styles and their impact in adult relationships and therapy

• Interpersonal difficulties: conflict, boundaries, co-dependency, abusive dynamics

• Working with emotionally intense clients (e.g. chronic emptiness, anger, shame)

• Using relational and schema-informed strategies in everyday practice

Class 9 – Psychopharmacology, Physical Health & Multidisciplinary Work

Focus: Integrating psychological and medical perspectives

• Overview of common psychotropic medications (indications, side-effects, limits)

• The interaction between mental and physical health (sleep, pain, chronic illness)

• Understanding GP, psychiatrist and community team roles

• How to read and respond to medical/psychiatric reports and care plans

• Communicating concerns: writing referral letters and professional correspondence

• Collaborative, person-centred, multidisciplinary practice

Class 10 – Ethics, Professional Practice & Integrative Case Presentation

Focus: Pulling everything together

• Core ethical principles: autonomy, beneficence, non-maleficence, justice

• Confidentiality, data protection, record-keeping and documentation

• Dealing with dilemmas: dual relationships, complaints, safeguarding, boundaries

• Using supervision effectively and planning ongoing CPD

• Student case presentations: assessment, formulation, intervention and reflection

• Integrating learning into a coherent personal practice model