Congratulations on receiving your offer to study on the MSc Health Psychology here at King’s College London and welcome to your on demand offer holder hub - where you can access the information and insight you need about your course, whenever you need it.

We are pleased to share that this course has achieved 89% overall satisfaction in the 2023/4 postgraduate taught experience student survey.

Don’t forget you can contact current IOPPN Postgraduate students on unibuddy at any time with questions you might have, and join Unibuddy Community (coming soon) to chat with fellow offer holders. Any upcoming events will also be added to this page, so do keep checking back for updates!

Professor Juliet Foster, Dean of Education, shares a warm welcome to the 2025 offer holders of the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology & Neuroscience.

Welcome from Programme Director, Dr Lyndsay Hughes.

The 2024 Postgraduate Online Offer Holder event recording is available below. A live 2025 event will take place in the coming months, details will be shared once booking is open. 

• Explore our content below to find out more about our Health Psychology course.
• Chat 1-2-1 with one of our current students on unibuddy.
• Take an online tour of our Denmark Hill Campus - home of the Department of Psychology.
• Join our postgraduate offer holders Unibuddy Community (coming soon) to chat with other offer holders for your course.

Watch our videos below to learn more about our Health Psychology course.

We are primarily based in the Health Psychology Section on the Guy’s Campus. Our teaching and supervision staff engage in teaching across undergraduate, postgraduate, doctoral and the medical school, as well as leading funded research studies aiming to understand and support people living with long term physical health conditions, often through digital interventions.

You can read more about the Health psychology and behavioural medicine research theme here which will provide some insight into the types of research projects available to join once you start your studies.

Most direct teaching will occur on campus in lecture classrooms on Tuesdays (all day), Wednesday mornings and Thursdays (all day). However, you will be exposed to many different learning opportunities to build your skills and make the most of your time with us. This will include lectures, seminars, practical workshops, small group work, reading groups, online activities, pre-recorded videos, self-directed reading and experiential learning through placements and projects.

The MSc is a full time course and you will be expected to spend around 35 hours per week attending classroom based teaching, attending meetings and engaging in other study activities.

A unique part of our MSc is the opportunity to complete a 100 hour applied work placement, and an independent research project. Both the project and placement are compulsory and assessed components of the course, and are often cited as the most exciting and rewarding.

We have dedicated placement and project co-ordinators who work hard to secure high quality placements and projects that provide an insight into the varied applications of health psychology. We source all of the placement and project supervisors, and support you with obtaining the necessary paperwork. In the first few weeks of term, you will be provided with more details about the placements and projects that take place in Semesters 2 and 3.

The recommended health psychology textbook is Health Psychology by David French:

• French D., Vehara K., Kaptein A., & Weinman J. (Eds.). (2010). Health Psychology (2nd ed.). Chichester, England: BPS Blackwell.

There are a number of other health psychology textbooks that are likely to cover relevant topics and be useful. It is not necessary to own a particular health psychology textbook.

One of the recommended statistics textbooks is Discovering Statistics Using IBM SPSS Statistics by Andy Field.

• Field, A. (2024). Discovering statistics using IBM SPSS Statics (6th ed.). London, England: Sage.

Although a new edition of this book was released last year, any previous editions that you may already own or wish to purchase second hand will work well.

We do not assign essential reading from textbooks and it is not necessary to purchase any textbook for this course. We have copies of the books above and other relevant texts in our dedicated health psychology library which you are welcome to use and borrow.

The MSc is accredited by the British Psychological Society (BPS) as a Stage 1 accredited training course towards becoming a registered Health Psychologist. We follow a scientist-practitioner model, providing systematic and critical training and education in research, theory and clinical application of health psychology to give you the confidence to progress to the next stage of your career. 

Our students go on to complete stage 2 training, PhDs, clinical psychology doctorates, work as assistant psychologists, research assistants, data analysts, trial managers, in digital health start ups and in public health. By capitalizing on the technical and transferable skills that you will learn on the MSc, there are many avenues available.

Discover more about our Denmark Hill campus and what it's like to live in the area.

• Camberwell virtual treasure hunt
• Denmark Hill Campus Tour
• Life in Denmark Hill