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HCMD6-Personal Development

Module Provider: School of Health and Social Care
Number of credits: 20 [10ECTS credits]
Level: 7
Terms in which taught: Y
Module Convenor: Ms BM Richards
Pre-requisites:
Co-requisites: HCMD1 HCMD2 HCMD3 HCMD4 HCMD5
Modules excluded:
Module version for: 2009/0

Email: b.m.richards@reading.ac.uk

Aims:

  • To provide a culture and structure within the Course that facilitates students in examining the relationship between theory, their own personal experience and their relationship with clients.
  • To facilitate a deeper understanding of self; the internal world; conscious and unconscious motivation, and how this manifests itself in interaction with others.
  • To facilitate an understanding of the underlying dynamics of various group settings.

    Assessable learning outcomes:
    Students will be able to demonstrate the ability:

  • To evaluate their own developmental journey through the period of the Postgraduate Diploma Course.
  • To elaborate upon the importance of their own personal development as it relates to the way they relate to clients.
  • To formulate an understanding of self in relation to others.
  • To recognise their own defence mechanisms.
  • To experience and contain own feelings.
  • To evaluate the group dynamics within the Course setting.

    Additional outcomes:
    Students are expected to:

  • Actively participate in the weekly small experiential groups as a means of developing their own self awareness.
  • Participate in the large ‘community’ group in order to examine both themselves in relation to large groups, and to observe the process operating within the Course itself.
  • Participate in the communications workshops; this will involve examination of, and reflection on, individual styles of communication.
  • Keep a personal journal of their responses to, and relationship with, the Course.
  • In the Course as a whole, be open and honest about their feelings and interactions, and show a willingness to examine themselves, their motivation and actions.

    Outline content:
    Personal Therapy. Students are required to undertake their own individual personal counselling or therapy in order to facilitate their personal development and to experience, first hand, what it is like to be a client. Therapy must be with a psychodynamic counsellor or psychoanalytic psychotherapist and at a minimum of one hour session per week during Years 1 and 2 of the Course or until all of the Postgraduate Diploma Course requirements have been met, whichever is the later.

    Small experiential group. These groups comprise about 10 students, have an external group facilitator and meet weekly for the first two years of the Course. The purpose is to enable students to develop an awareness of themselves in relation to the material presented to them on the Course and to examine themselves in relation to others within the Course.

    Large experiential group. This group, comprising all core staff and students, i.e. the Course community, meets three times per term and has an external facilitator. The group provides students with a medium in which to examine how they function in a large group, and an opportunity to observe and share their observations about the ‘underlying’ dynamic process of the Course.

    Communications Workshops. A series of three workshops per term, the purpose of which is to raise the individual student’s perception and understanding of how they function intra-psychically and interpersonally.

    Brief description of teaching and learning methods:
    The process of personal development is encouraged and facilitated in all of the teaching and learning activities within the Course. A student may also make use of personal tutorials as a place to process and integrate their experience within the Course as a whole.

    Contact hours:

      Autumn Spring Summer
    Lectures      
    Tutorials Group and Individual)*

    spread over period of the module

    		 3    
    Practicals      
    Groups 19.5(Yr 1) 19.5(Yr 2) 19.5(Yr 1) 19.5(Yr 2) 19.5(Yr 1) 19.5(Yr 2)
    Workshops 7.5(Yr 1) 4.5(Yr 2) 4.5(Yr 1) 4.5(Yr 2) 4.5(Yr 1) 4.5(Yr 2)
    Personal Therapy - ongoing minimum of one hour session per week for two years
     Total hours 30(Yr 1) 24(Yr 2) 24(Yr 1) 24(Yr 2) 24(Yr 1) 24(Yr 2)
    Number of essays or assignments Review (Yr 1) Review (Yr 2) Review (Yr 1)

    Essay (Yr 2)
    Other (eg major seminar paper)      

    Assessment:
    Coursework
    A Student Review will take place at three points during the Postgraduate Diploma. The first two reviews are formative assessments and the final review is a summative assessment. Although these are positioned in this Personal Development Module, they are designed to help students gain an overall picture of their progress on the Programme and assess the degree to which they are able to integrate between its different components. The assessment is based upon the student’s contribution and performance in all aspects of the Programme.

    Students are required to keep a personal journal recording their experience of, and emotional response to, the Course. This is non – assessed, however it may be discussed from time to time in individual tutorials to assist the student's own assessment of themselves.

    Students are required to reflect upon their own personal development in an assessed written assignment of 2500 words.

    Relative percentage of coursework 100%

    Penalties for late submission:
    Penalties for late submission of course work will be in accordance with University policy.

    Examinations n/a

    Requirements for a pass: 50%.

    Reassessment arrangements
    Students who do not obtain the required pass mark in the assessed work will be given the opportunity to resubmit the work on one further occasion: the re-sit grade cannot exceed 50%

    Last updated: 9 December 2009

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