Applications for our Certificate in Humanistic Counselling Skills courses beginning in September and November 2026 are open.
Interviews will take place until places are filled.
This level 4 part-time course over one academic year is one of our most popular. The aim of the course is to develop your self-awareness, communication, and counselling skills to give you a deeper understanding of counselling theories and ethics.
Gestalt theory holds a central position in this course and supports the use of counselling skills in a variety of settings. This includes the charitable sector, education, and managerial settings where there is a role in supporting people. The certificate can also be taken as a standalone course by those looking to understand themselves and their relationships – whether for personal insight, or simply continuing professional development, even if you don’t plan on becoming a therapist.
There are 4 course formats. Applications are open until courses are full, and interviews run through out the year. For all Certificate students there is an overall 90% attendance and as part of the training there is a mandatory minimum requirement of 12 hours personal therapy with a MBACP (Accred) or UCKP Registered counsellor/therapist. See our course format sections below for details.
On successful completion of this course, you will be awarded a Certificate in Humanistic Counselling Skills. This fulfils the entry requirements for application to the two-year, BACP accredited Diploma in Counselling or alternatively you may be eligible for the Gestalt Psychotherapy Training Programme (subject to application and interview). Visit our individual course pages for full information.
Who takes this course?
You can take this course as a standalone introduction to counselling or as a foundation to our Gestalt Counselling Programme. The course typically attracts:
- People who may 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 skills, 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. See our Gestalt in Action short course page to book and for further details.
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)