ABSTRACT
Courses in psychodynamic counselling have been offered by the University of London Centre for Extra-Mural Studies since 1972. The first one, the Certificate in Student Counselling, was the product of a confluence of two ‘missions’. From the one direction came the recognition that the traditional medical services in educational institutions were inadequate to the demands being made on them, and they might not, in any case, provide the best response to the kinds of problems students have. In the main, these problems are developmental hitches rather than physical or psychiatric illnesses, and they take a form which implicates the academic tasks and setting. From the other direction came a commitment to the dissemination of the ideas and techniques of psychoanalysis, taking them out of the consulting room into the work-place and applying their insights to the particular needs and problems of various everyday situations – in this case, to the business of teaching and learning in educational organizations. Perhaps, as Freud had hoped, nonmedical people with a professional understanding of the psychological aspects and hazards of learning could be trained so that they could look after the personal well-being as well as the academic achievement of students?
