This part-time course spread over one academic year is one of our most popular. Successful completion of the Certificate fulfils the requirements for those wishing to apply to our BACP Diploma in Counselling leading to professional membership of the BACP (British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy) but is often taken as a standalone course by people looking to understand life and relationships – whether for personal insight or professional development.
Counselling skills are regarded as advanced, interpersonal, social and communication tools that enable people with their thoughts and feelings. Showing that you can listen and understand a person, even if nothing can be changed about their situation is invaluable to them. Counselling skills are also used to guide people through decision processes, perhaps helping to see potential possibilities or areas for change.
Gestalt holds a central position in this course and as an evolving, exciting and universally applicable theory it supports the use of counselling skills. It is well respected and has influenced and enriched many other therapeutic, educational and managerial approaches to supporting people.
A mandatory minimum of 12 hours’ personal therapy with one MBACP (Accred) or UCKP Registered counsellor/therapist is required as part of the training for all Certificate students.
Note: Should you go onto further study, individual therapy/counselling is a mandatory requirement for the duration of the Diploma in Counselling course. This MUST be with either a Reg. MBACP (Accred) counsellor or a UKCP registered psychotherapist with at least 3 years’ post qualifying experience. There is a similar requirement for those who progress to the psychotherapy training programme.
Who takes this course?
You can take this course as a standalone introduction to counselling or as the start of our Gestalt Counselling Programme. The course typically attracts:
- This is a first stage of training for people who ultimately want to qualify as professional counsellors.
- People-focused professionals in health, complementary medicine, social care, the prison service, HR, consultancy, coaching and mentoring who want to develop their communication, negotiation, assertiveness and problem-solving, and to gain a qualification as part of their CPD
- People who want to understand more about themselves, others and their relationships.
What the course offers
- Participation in a varied, stimulating learning environment which includes tutor and student input, group-work and personal reflection
- An understanding of the theories which support the use of counselling skills
- Opportunities to practice various counselling skills and techniques within an ethical and professional framework
- A safe place to begin to explore and share some of your personal beliefs and values
- Continuing professional development.
Course outline
There are three components to the course.
1. Foundation
Here, you’ll learn about the various counselling skills and techniques needed to support people in personal exploration and during times of difficulty. Looking more closely at yourself and relationships with others, you’ll be invited to consider your attitudes to race, gender, sexuality and other differences. There will be an introduction to person-centered counselling and to Gestalt theory and practice and how it supports the use of counselling skills.
2. Gestalt in Action
This component will enable you to deepen your understanding of Gestalt theory and practice using words, art, writing, sound, movement and other creative means. You’ll explore how we make and interrupt contact with ourselves in order to meet our needs, others and the environment and how this affects our life. As a central theme in Gestalt therapy theory, you’ll also look at the issue of responsibility and at the consequences of disowning it. (We also offer this component as a single weekend.)
3. Endings (including loss)
As children, the quality of the bond that we make with others lays the groundwork for future relationships and determines how we cope with the many different losses in our lives, including the ending of the therapeutic relationship. We respond to loss by beginning a process of grieving. In this last part of the training you will learn about loss theory and how to work with endings, including the end of the client/counsellor relationship as well as the end of the group you have studied in and the course.
What our students say…
“Fulfilled my expectations and then exceeded them. This has been the course I wanted and needed it to be but also so much more – life-changing.” HP (Charity Development Manager)
“This course was much, much stronger than I had expected.” KF (PR Consultant)
“I enjoyed this course immensely. Life-changing and a new beginning” BO (Chair of Educational Charity)