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Mental health

Psychiatry Diploma

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An evidence-led diploma in adult psychiatry: how to assess, formulate and treat the conditions you meet most often, what the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE), the World Health Organization's International Classification of Diseases (ICD-11) and the major prescribing guidelines say, and how to make safe decisions about risk, mental health law and medicines.

Twenty-five weekly sessions across five modules take you from assessment, risk and the law, through psychosis, bipolar disorder, depression, anxiety and trauma, to neurodevelopmental conditions, eating disorders, later life, substance use and personality disorders, taught live by practising specialists you can question.

Course director
To be announced
Format
25 live weekly sessions on Zoom, in 5 modules
Dates
Confirmed when enrolment opens

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A white armchair and sofa around a low table, with a table lamp and a wall of plants behind wooden-framed windows.
Image: a consultation room by Bixing Sheng via Unsplash, licensed under the Unsplash License.

Who it is for

Senior trainees, fellows and early-career consultants in psychiatry, and physicians, GPs and other doctors who care for people with mental illness, worldwide.

The programme

25 one-hour sessions in 5 modules, each with its learning objectives. This is the draft programme: the course director reviews and refines it before enrolment opens, so session titles may change.

Module 1 · Sessions 1 to 5Assessment, risk and the law

  1. 1. Psychiatric assessment, formulation and diagnosis

    • Conduct a structured psychiatric history and mental state examination
    • Construct a biopsychosocial formulation that guides the management plan
    • Compare the two international classifications where they lead to different diagnoses
    • Adapt an assessment to the person's language, culture and own explanation of their difficulties

  2. 2. Self-harm and suicide: assessment and safety planning

    • Carry out a psychosocial assessment after self-harm in line with NICE guidance
    • Explain why risk scales must not be used to predict suicide or ration care
    • Develop a collaborative safety plan with the person and, with consent, their family
    • Plan aftercare and follow-up after an episode of self-harm

  3. 3. Mental health law and mental capacity

    • Apply the detention criteria of the amended Mental Health Act, including the serious harm test
    • Assess decision-making capacity for a specific treatment decision
    • Explain the rights the 2025 reforms give patients, including choosing a nominated person
    • Compare compulsory treatment law in England and Wales with frameworks in other countries

  4. 4. Acute behavioural disturbance and rapid tranquillisation

    • Use de-escalation techniques before considering restrictive interventions
    • Choose and monitor rapid tranquillisation in line with national guidance
    • Identify medical causes of acute disturbance, including delirium and intoxication
    • Lead a post-incident debrief that supports the person and the team

  5. 5. Physical health in severe mental illness

    • Plan physical health monitoring for a person starting an antipsychotic
    • Manage antipsychotic-associated weight gain and metabolic change
    • Adjust clozapine or olanzapine treatment when a person stops or starts smoking
    • Interpret the electrocardiogram and QTc interval when prescribing psychotropics
Module 2 · Sessions 6 to 10Psychosis and bipolar disorder

  1. 6. First-episode psychosis and early intervention

    • Assess a first presentation of psychosis, including organic and substance-related causes
    • Agree a first antipsychotic with the person through shared decision-making
    • Explain what early intervention in psychosis care should offer
    • Involve families and carers in the plan with the person's consent

  2. 7. Antipsychotics: choice, adverse effects and long-acting injections

    • Select an antipsychotic by balancing efficacy, adverse effects and the person's priorities
    • Recognise and manage extrapyramidal side effects and tardive dyskinesia
    • Decide when a long-acting injectable antipsychotic is the right choice
    • Compare UK and US prescribing guidance for schizophrenia, including newer non-dopamine options

  3. 8. Treatment-resistant schizophrenia and clozapine

    • Apply consensus criteria to confirm treatment-resistant schizophrenia
    • Start clozapine safely and set up blood monitoring
    • Recognise and act on clozapine-induced myocarditis, neutropenia and severe constipation
    • Plan the options when clozapine gives only a partial response

  4. 9. Bipolar disorder: mania and bipolar depression

    • Distinguish bipolar depression from unipolar depression at assessment
    • Treat acute mania or hypomania in line with NICE guidance
    • Choose treatment for bipolar depression and judge when antidepressants carry risk
    • Recognise mixed states and rapid cycling and adjust the plan

  5. 10. Long-term treatment in bipolar disorder: lithium, valproate and relapse prevention

    • Start and monitor lithium safely, including levels and renal and thyroid function
    • Recognise lithium toxicity and the factors that precipitate it
    • Apply the UK valproate safety requirements to people under 55
    • Build a relapse prevention plan with the person and their family
Module 3 · Sessions 11 to 15Depression, anxiety and trauma

  1. 11. Depression: assessment and first-line treatment

    • Assess the severity of depression and its impact on daily life
    • Offer the treatment options in national guidance through shared decision-making
    • Choose and adjust an antidepressant using side-effect profile and interactions
    • Plan follow-up and the length of treatment after remission

  2. 12. Treatment-resistant depression

    • Define treatment-resistant depression and check for reversible causes of non-response
    • Choose between switching and augmentation strategies
    • Explain the evidence and indications for electroconvulsive therapy and transcranial magnetic stimulation
    • Discuss newer treatments for depression and their funding status in the UK

  3. 13. Anxiety disorders and obsessive-compulsive disorder

    • Differentiate generalised anxiety, panic, social anxiety and obsessive-compulsive disorder
    • Apply the stepped-care model to anxiety disorders
    • Prescribe for anxiety disorders while avoiding dependence-forming medicines
    • Refer people for the psychological therapy each anxiety disorder needs

  4. 14. Post-traumatic stress disorder, simple and complex

    • Diagnose post-traumatic stress disorder and its complex form using international criteria
    • Explain the psychological treatments national guidance recommends
    • Decide when medication has a place in post-traumatic stress disorder
    • Apply trauma-informed principles in routine psychiatric care

  5. 15. Perinatal mental health

    • Advise a person with a mental illness who is planning a pregnancy about medication
    • Recognise postpartum psychosis as an emergency and arrange urgent care
    • Choose psychotropic medication in pregnancy and breastfeeding
    • Compare UK and US treatment options for depression after childbirth
Module 4 · Sessions 16 to 20Neurodevelopment, eating disorders and later life

  1. 16. Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder in adults

    • Assess an adult for attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and the conditions that often co-occur
    • Start and titrate medication with appropriate cardiovascular monitoring
    • Manage attention deficit hyperactivity disorder in people who also use substances
    • Plan shared care and annual review of treatment

  2. 17. Autism and intellectual disability in adult psychiatry

    • Recognise how mental illness presents in autistic adults and adults with an intellectual disability
    • Make reasonable adjustments to assessment and treatment
    • Review psychotropic prescribing for behaviour that challenges and reduce it where possible
    • Explain how the 2025 law reforms change detention for these groups

  3. 18. Eating disorders

    • Assess medical risk in a person with an eating disorder using national emergency guidance
    • Recognise and prevent refeeding syndrome
    • Outline the psychological treatments recommended for each eating disorder
    • Coordinate care between psychiatric, medical and family teams

  4. 19. Young people moving into adult services

    • Plan a transition from children's to adult mental health services in line with national guidance
    • Assess a young adult presenting with mental illness for the first time
    • Balance confidentiality with family involvement for young adults
    • Maintain continuity of treatment for long-term conditions at transition

  5. 20. Older adults: delirium, dementia and late-life depression

    • Screen for and manage delirium using a validated tool and national guidance
    • Distinguish dementia, delirium and depression in an older adult
    • Limit antipsychotic use for distress in people living with dementia
    • Explain the eligibility and monitoring issues raised by anti-amyloid antibodies
Module 5 · Sessions 21 to 25Substance use, personality and complex care

  1. 21. Alcohol use disorders

    • Assess alcohol dependence and plan safe assisted withdrawal
    • Prevent and treat Wernicke's encephalopathy
    • Choose medication to prevent relapse in alcohol dependence
    • Support people in recovery using non-stigmatising language and practice

  2. 22. Drug use and co-occurring mental illness

    • Assess substance use as part of every psychiatric assessment
    • Manage psychosis in people who use cannabis or stimulants
    • Work safely alongside opioid substitution and harm reduction services
    • Plan integrated care for co-occurring mental illness and substance use

  3. 23. Personality disorders

    • Diagnose personality disorder using the severity-based international classification
    • Explain why medication is not a primary treatment for borderline personality disorder
    • Plan crisis care that avoids unhelpful admissions and polypharmacy
    • Refer people to the structured psychological treatments with the strongest evidence

  4. 24. Safe prescribing, dependence and stopping psychotropics

    • Review a person's psychotropic medicines for dependence risk and polypharmacy
    • Plan a gradual taper of a benzodiazepine, Z-drug or gabapentinoid
    • Recognise antidepressant withdrawal symptoms and plan slow dose reduction
    • Explain the risks of combined and high-dose psychotropic regimens

  5. 25. Complex case review and care in low-resource settings

    • Apply the course to complex cases in a panel discussion
    • Adapt evidence-based care to settings with few mental health specialists
    • Recognise and treat catatonia
    • Build a personal plan for continuing development in psychiatry

What the diploma includes

  • 25 live sessions on Zoom, one evening a week, with recordings for the weeks you miss.
  • Practising specialists teaching live, so you can put your questions to them.
  • Weekly MCQs and a final written assessment.
  • A digital certificate carrying your final classification.

Lead or teach the Psychiatry Diploma

We are looking for a course director and faculty from the specialty. Sessions are one hour in the UK evening, live on Zoom, and paid.

Apply to teach