Professional Certificate in Addiction Studies: Psychoanalytic Theory & Clinical Technique
This advanced professional certificate offers an in-depth exploration of addiction through the lens of psychoanalytic theory and clinical practice. Designed for mental health professionals, psychotherapists, counsellors, and allied practitioners, the programme integrates contemporary addiction studies with psychoanalytic insights into human behaviour, unconscious processes, and the formation of compulsive patterns.
Participants will critically examine the intrapsychic, developmental, and relational dimensions of addiction, exploring the role of trauma, repetition compulsion, ego defences, and transference phenomena. Drawing on key thinkers such as Freud, Winnicott, Lacan, Khantzian, and contemporary relational theorists, the course places addiction within a broader framework of psychic structure and symptom formation.
The programme combines theoretical seminars with case-based learning and technical workshops, providing clinicians with practical tools for assessment, formulation, and intervention. Special emphasis is placed on therapeutic technique, including working with resistance, building the therapeutic alliance, and managing countertransference in addiction treatment.
By the end of the course, participants will have developed a deeper understanding of addiction as both a psychological defence and a symptom of deeper psychic conflict, enabling more nuanced and effective clinical responses in both individual and group settings.
- Lecturer: Dr. Hugh Cummins
- Lecturer: Dr. Michael McArdle