What is Counselling Training really like?

Training to be a counsellor is different to how you might have experienced being a student at school or college.   Your mind might wander to memories of sitting at a desk, listening to a teacher talk at you, following rules such as only going to the toilet in the break and speak when you are spoken to. The reality is it is much less formal and being an adult learner means being self-directive whilst you are qualifying.

I notice a familiar pattern in my role as Counselling Lecturer where people enrolling onto counselling courses have an expectation to prove they are clever or academic and will learn ways to 'fix people'. 

So what is the training like?

Well, there are several parts to Counselling Training, such as studying trusted and tested theories and methodologies, applying it to yourself before starting to think about working with anyone else.  An inspirational place to start is Carl Jung and his passion for people to become who they truly are. Freud makes an appearance with his Human Psyche.  You might have seen an image of him looking intense and serious whilst smoking a cigar or pipe as ‘his patient’ lies on a couch.

Q: Do you have to be 'fully sorted' before enrolling on a Counselling Course?

A: Is anyone 'fully sorted' and how can you measure this?

A good place to start is an Introduction to Counselling Skills course. This is usually around 10 weeks, approximately 3 hours a week. It is a good taster before you invest your time and money into Levels 2, 3, 4 and beyond!

What is important is to have a manageable level of emotional regulation. Sometimes it's not possible to predict the impact of the training until you begin then blind spots may have a habit of jumping out to catch your attention. To ensure you are taking good care of yourself, your tutor might suggest you invest in some personal counselling to support you or you may benefit from taking a break from your studies before enrolling again when the time is right.

Something surprising is how explorative the learning is. This entails looking at your life patterns and noticing which conditions needed to be in place in order for you to feel worthy of love growing up. You will be expected to look at differences between cultures and see how your life history shaped you and how it affects the way you interact with others.

Counselling training cannot be reduced to 'learning scripts' or rehearsing ‘techniques to deliver' because this is not authentic and the foundation of the work is in the 'therapeutic relationship'.   In order to facilitate change whilst working with a client, you will be expected to tolerate uncertainty, lean into self-reflection and look at your life history and relationship patterns.  Every counsellor brings something unique and diversity is embraced bringing richness to the profession.

The training is intense, thorough, experiential, supportive and surprising. There is so much to learn about yourself and people in a way that cannot be predicted. Always keeping in mind:-

'We cannot expect a client to travel where we have not been to ourselves.'