Hello,
Sorry for my late reply. I will answer in general and then go into details. I can definitely answer all your questions.
You said you want to get your psychotherapy license. You might also think if you want to work in your own practice (psychotherapeut in eigener praxis - which is a special title in switzerland). But this is another topic.
First of all, because of the path you chose, you have to do a Masters with a specialization in Clinical Psychology. You can't do the other directions like work psychology or economic psychology. So you have to do a master's in person (not online or long distance) in Switzerland in clinical psychology. You can also do it in another country but getting it recognised would be difficult. And even in Uk, if you wanted to work there as a psychotherapist, you can't do it online.
My opinion is that studying at the OU or in the UK is a gamble. My situation worked out but it was 50% luck.
The way it works is like this. Universities in Switzerland have autonomy, meaning they have their own rule about who they let in and who they don't. Meaning they have a manual and they follow the rules from there. It's not like in the US where they look at reference letters and other things, it's purely mathematical. It's an advantage that not all unis in Switzerland are the same because if one rejects you, another may accept you. The process is straightforward (sorry for my English). They don't care about BP accreditation, as that is UK internal and they don't care about the type of degree, open or not. All they care about is credits. they look at everything you studied and they try to equivalate it. ̈
I was the one that did an open degree and then applied at Zurich uni and got rejected. Then I applied in Bern and then In 2 other cities and they rejected me. Why they rejected me? They have this system, if you are missing a number of credits, they will let you in the Master and you can make it up until you finish the master. If you are missing more than the acceptable amount, they will admit you into the bachelor, and once you decrease a bit the number of missing credits, they will let you into the master's and you can still make up the missing credits until you finish the master's.
In my case, I was missing 70 credits, and by the rule of most universities, 70 credits is too much and you have to do the whole bachelor's again. Only Basel uni (which has different rules) allowed me to make up the missing credits. Now, some very important information for you. The problem was that I graduated, got my diploma, and then applied at Zurich Uni. Then, there was a done deal for them, my degree was not good. if I would've done it (applying for the masters at Zurich Uni) before getting my diploma from the OU, they would've let me in because they would've considered it a transfer from one bachelor to another. One is always allowed to transfer, if for example you move, you could do 20 credit in one country and the rest in another. This is under Bologna.
Another problem is that universities don't talk to you if you are not a student. They just don't have the resources and don't feel like it. Most universities, especially Zurich Uni are unfriendly. For example, they sent me the rejection letter but forgot to send me the last page. When I read the letter it felts like a conclusion was missing. I went in to talk to them and people from Sekretariat didn't even want to talk to me. when I sent them an email and insisted, they told me to contact their lawyers. Studying in Switzerland is elitist and they have enough students, so they will not make an effort. So, no matter which path you chose, 6 months before you graduate, apply to as many universities as possible to see which credits you are missing. I will summarize it again at the end. The reason to do that is that you can go with your modules from OU to the Secretariat (the only place non-students can go) but they can't give you good answers. Its not their job. The only people specialized to give you an answer is the admission commission which springs from the dekanat. The dekanat is only for students or people that officially apply. You will only get there if you officially apply. It will cost you 100CHF per university and you can take your file back at any time. You can apply at any stage in your OU studies and as often as you want.
Why not UK?
The problem with the UK education or better-said modules is that it doesn't correspond 1 to 1 to Europe mainland modules. From this point of view, it would be much better to study in Switzerland or some other country near. A degree from the Balkans would fit a lot better than UK.
No matter how well you plan your OU studies, swiss universities change their rules. For example in my case, the problem was not only that my OU modules didn't match very well, but that I only did a part of my OU degree in psychology, and the rest of the OU credits I equivalated with IT. I was planning on doing the masters at Zurich uni which required a major in psychology and a minor in IT. By the time I finished the OU, they completely eliminated the minor, so I needed a lot more credits in psychology than planned.
If I were in your case, I would do a bachelor's somewhere in Europe, probably online. fernuni is one option and it is recognized by all universities here. Any other country near would work.
Another option is to do what someone else did. She did the accredited full psychology degree with OU but then she didnt apply at the university but at Hochschule. You can get your psychotherapeutical licence also with a hochschule. I think she got into the Zürcher Hochschule. Downside is that you can never do a phd after and also that the Hochschule has an admission test you have to do a year before...
Sorry, I have to list yet another problem, but this time with the Open Degree. So concretely an open degree will match a lot less with what is required at the universities in CH. The psychology-accredited one matches a lot more. I couldnt do the open degree and chose the modules from the accredited one becase when i joined OU, that was not allowed anymore.
So you have 3 options:
Option 1: Study the bachelor at Fernuni or france or whatever (but then you have the language issue)
Option2: Apply at Hochschule and not at University with your OU degree (as long as it has a lot of OU credits in psychology)- because of that I would not do a philosophy + psychology degree
Option3. Do the OU degree (again the full psychology one) and apply before you graduate (before you ask the OU to give you the degree). If credits are missing (as a result of the prüfungskommision report from any university here), you can continue the OU with those credits (if too much is missing).
Let me look at your other questions:
"You mentioned you've done an open degree. Would you care to share what the Psy modules were that you have elected during your years at OU"
I can do more than that. I can send you from all 4 swiss universities the equivalation: on one side my modules and on the other side theirs and what they equivalated and what not. For me, I was missing all the ugly ones like methodology and a lot of statistics.
"I'm interested in "Philosophy and Psychological studies", full time, which comes with 90 credits for Psy and 90 for Humanities (Philosophy). It's not BPS accredited which concerns me in terms of continuing my education in Switzerland. Based on your previous answers though, it looks like that this accreditation won't add much to being eligible for further studies in Switzerland?"
Yes, accreditation doesn't matter, but I would do full 180 credits in psychology. To do a masters here, you need 180 credits in psychology Because education in Ch is 20 times harder than OU, I would even try to do the extra statistics modules that OU are offering...But you can do that at the end if they reject you because you are missing enough credits. If they let you in, you can also ask them to do a couple of missing statistics at OU. So if you are registered in switzerland, you can do I think 2 semesters in another counry for some credits...inception, i know,.
"I can see that someone you knew did the full psy honours degree at OU but was still denied from UZH. Was this rejection based on the nature of the OU degree or simply due to generic reasons such as no study placement available etc.?"
Reason was: I dont remmember, sorry. Multiple people told me along the years. But reason is always that more than 50 credits are missing after side by side comparison.
"When you caught up with the credits of Basel University, how long did that take you? I suppose you did that previous to starting your Master's at that Uni? Or was this simultaneously?"
Good question: I would say 2 years but I am working full time but also I caught the corona part in the middle where everything was online.
So with me was like this: they let me in Bachelor with 70 missing credits. They said, you have to reduce to 25. Once i reduced to 25, they let me in the masters. So I would say 4 years to do the bachelor missing credits plus the whole masters while working full time and doing the 2 praktikum in parallel.
Another thinkg they didnt recognise (besides the statistics and bachelor arbeit) was the praktikum. For bachelor and masters, you have to do 3 months full time practice in psychology (one for bachelor and one for masters). In my case, i had to do it in parallel with working full time and studying.
let me know where do you want those papers. i will not post it on the public forum.
To reiterate, even if people from uni tell you that the modules you chose are ok, whatever they say is under no responsibility to be correct. So I think the best thing is to apply at the uni, even after a couple of years. You can apply as often as you want. 100chf will give you access to prüfungskommision and they are the ones that know and have the right to equivalate.
In conclusion, you can try the OU if you make sure you get at least 180 credits in psychology. Sorry i dont remember who told me she got rejected or if she applied or just asked? I know one of the people only wanted to do the Hochschule as its easier.