As you may know, I run a variety of ‘Introduction to’ (and over the Covid-19 era, even ‘Short Introduction to’) courses on themes related to counselling, coaching, and psychology. Often, participants are interested in their options for further study, especially in the counselling field, so I thought I would try to explain these here.
NB If you think that I have got something wrong, please send me a message!
Only one profession
People often ask what the difference is between a counsellor and a psychotherapist. In the UK, there is none. What a practitioner chooses to call themselves is up to them. A few specialities prefer specific terms (‘analyst’, for example) and some organisations refer primarily to one or the other, but fundamentally (and legally) there is no difference.
Three types of organisation
It’s helpful to distinguish between three different types of organisation that you will encounter.
Professional body: This is the organisation that maintains a Register of qualified practitioners. You will join one when you begin your training and you will remain a member until you retire (and maybe beyond). Being ‘on a Register’ is voluntary in this country, because counselling is not a ‘regulated’ profession at present. The processes for maintaining the registers (not the members themselves) are audited by the Professional Standards Authority. There are three Professional Bodies that the substantial majority of counsellors belong to; the British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy (BACP), the United Kingdom Council for Psychotherapy (UKCP), and the National Counselling and Psychotherapy Society (NCPS).
Awarding body: This is the organisation that actually awards your qualification in counselling, which you then present to the professional body who will ultimately add you to their register. In the UK, the awarding bodies are usually either universities or one of two commercial organisations: the Central Psychotherapy and Counselling Awarding Body (CPCAB) and the National Council for Further Education (NCFE). These bodies are audited by government-appointed regulators to ensure that their processes and procedures are effective. You will not have any choice over which awarding body your qualification is from (and that shouldn’t matter) as this will depend on where you do your training.
Training organisations: These are the places that you actually attend to do your training to become a counsellor. There are many of these around the country. They include universities, Further Education colleges, charities (both large and small), and commercial training firms (also both large and small).
Where do you begin?
The professional bodies each specify the minimum amount of training, and voluntary practice, that a trainee must have in order to become a counsellor. The training requirement is measured in Guided Learning Hours (GLH).
This figure is then broken down by the awarding bodies into two or three courses attended one after the other.
Most trainees will begin with a Level 2 course in ‘counselling skills’. Level 2 is the equivalent standard of a GCSE. The skills are basic but essential. Level 2 courses are offered all over the country. Most are delivered in-person and either involve attending 4-5 hours during the day (often called ‘intensives’) or 3-4 hours in the evening. The intensives usually run from September to February, while the evening classes run for an academic year. Obviously, which one you choose will depend on personal preferences – distance, cost, and timing.
Very few universities offer the earlier two stages of training (Level 2 and Level 3). Most students will do these through either an FE college, a charity, or a commercial organisation.
Double-check whether the qualification at the end of the course is awarded by an independent awarding body. Some rogue outfits are offering what appear to be credible qualifications but they are only internally checked (if that). I have encountered one FE college, even, that was doing this. If you fall for one of these, you will almost certainly have to redo the course later!
Since Covid-19, there have been a number of online courses offered at L2. Because of the quirks of government funding, some of these are FREE! The three things to get in writing about these are (1) who the external awarding body is, (2) how much of the course is delivered synchronously, and (3) whether the training organisation offering them accept this as the entry to the Level 4 Diploma that they offer. This probably sounds very complicated but try to follow my explanation…
Provided that the L2 qualification that you receive comes from a recognised awarding body (NOT the training organisation) then it should be acceptable to progress on to the next stage in your training. With the following proviso…
Teaching where the tutor is in live contact with the students is called ‘synchronous’. They can ask questions and get answers immediately. Teaching where students study at their own convenience, post questions and get answers later, are ‘asynchronous’. The professional bodies do not currently accept asynchronous training as acceptable for GLH.
Even though the awarding bodies will always accept their own awards for entry to the next level, some training organisations (ie the tutors on the next level) still do not. This means that once you’ve completed Level 2 and Level 3 online with a particular training organisation, you may have to move to another in order to progress.
After Level 2 (‘skills’)…
Much of what I have said of Level 2 applies to Level 3 too. L3 is the equivalent standard to a GCE A level. These courses are referred to as “Counselling Theory”. This is only partly true because most L2s include quite a bit of theory at L2 standard, and most L3s include quite a lot of practice at L3 standard.
If you did an ‘intensive L2’, then you will probably go on to an ‘intensive L3’ which usually begins when the first finishes, running from March to July. If you did an evening class L2, you’ll begin the next evening class L3 in September.
If only it was that simple… If you are studying at most FE colleges or commercial training companies, the L3 will be a ‘generic’ course. It will introduce you to various theoretical approaches (known as ‘modalities’).
However, if you were drawn to training as a counsellor for a specific reason, you may want/need to choose an L3 course offered by a specialist training organisation. Sometimes, these organisations (usually charities and often with a long history of association in a particular modality) call their equivalent of the L3 as a ‘foundation’ year. They often insist on this being undertaken by students regardless, so it could be a waste of time if you did your L3 elsewhere first. These organisations are often in London, examples include ReVision, CCPE, and Metanoia.
Thinking of working from Europe?
There is another, rather mercenary, reason for considering training with one of these specialist organisations. Their students are often accepted as accredited members of the UKCP. For rather irritating reasons, back in the early 1990s, the UKCP became the face of UK psychotherapy in Europe. Those practitioners on its register, are automatically eligible for the European Certificate of Psychotherapy, enabling them to practice throughout the Continent. If you harbour plans to live elsewhere and run a practice, for example online, then this might be a good route to consider.
The changing nature of the L3
You may have already realised that the skills of counselling are readily applied elsewhere. When I have run L2/L3 courses, the students have included lawyers, journalists, teachers, healthcare practitioners, police officers, and many students for whom English is not their first language but who see that counselling skills are an exceptional way of developing their confidence in day-to-day conversation.
FE colleges, especially, depend on government funding schemes to help keep them afloat. Thus the cost of a course rarely reflects the real cost of delivering and administering it. Until this year, the L3 course was seen by the government as the first step in the chain leading to the ‘vocation’ of being a counsellor. Sadly, as many students do not go on to this job, they have decided to stop subsidising these courses from 2024.
The CPCAB, probably the largest awarding body of L3 and L4 courses, have responded with a revised L3 award which has been accepted for funding. Known as “Applied Counselling”, this includes material suitable for students wanting to use these skills in other careers. These courses will therefore be longer, broader, deeper, and (rather bizarrely) cheaper!
Degree or Diploma – how to choose?
Once you have completed the L3, you are ready to move on to Level 4. If you thought the choices earlier were confusing, tighten your seat-belt!
The first choice you need to make is which path to take – a diploma or a foundation degree (see the definition below). Both qualifications lead to registration (usually with either the BACP or the NCPS). Both are two-year long courses. The diploma is taught as a part-time qualification. The degree as a full-time one. The diploma is taught at L4 throughout, while the degree is taught at L4 in the first year and L5 in the second year. Part-time, realistically means about 2-3 days per week; full-time usually means 3-4 days per week. The commitment involves private study, college time (usually attending one day per week), working in a placement, personal therapy (a requirement of all courses), supervision, and more. It would be wrong to say that no students scrape through on less, but they are the exception, and they will not be the cleverest! (Because they will have missed out on a lot of the benefits of the training for the longer term.)
- A foundation degree is the same as the first two years of an honours degree. Previously known as a Diploma in Higher Education (DipHE), it is awarded as a pass/fail. You can go on to take a final year, known as a BA or BSc “Top-Up” if you wish.
Assuming that you can manage the commitment (and I would argue that both are really the same – nearly full-time) then price might sway you. A typical Diploma costs about £8k in tuition fees, whereas a typical degree costs about £17k. However, the vagueries of the UK education sector creep in here too. If you have already had a loan to study for a degree then you will have to pay that. However, if you haven’t you will probably be eligible for a Student Loan, which is a mildly depressing weight on your shoulders but can eventually be written off! For many counselling students doing a degree is therefore a much cheaper option.
Isn’t a diploma easier?
There are places where the diploma is definitely easier. It would be foolish to deny this. The diploma is often pitched as ‘more practical, less academic’. In my experience, the difference is in the individual student’s approach – some take study seriously, others don’t. Both are ‘experiential’, though some tutors insist that the diploma is more so. They are usually misinterpreting ‘experiential’. Your best gauge of a particular course is probably to speak to some of the students.
Will a degree be necessary in the future?
The profession has recently gone through a comprehensive process of negotiation, known as SCOPED. It has tried to establish equivalences across the awarding and professional bodies. It has indicated that further training is required to undertake more complex scenarios in more complex contexts. Elsewhere in the world, counselling has been a degree-only (if not a doctorate-only) profession. It seems to some of us that this is the direction in which UK counselling is going. Equipped with a diploma, you will have a couple more years of training to add. With a degree, you will already be there.
Which modality?
It is at the L4 stage that most courses become specific to a particular modality. In L3 you should have been introduced to a range, and have begun to feel an affinity for one or the other. Alternatively, your tutor(s) may have explored pluralistic or integrative approaches. Do NOT simply choose a diploma because you like your tutor and that is the one they teach. In institutions, staff change.
If you are still unsure, do some reading, explore YouTube, and try to find a therapist who offers a particular modality and ask them if they will offer say three sessions for you to see what it is like. You will be in a much better position to decide and your interviewers for the L4 will (I hope) be impressed.
For a few more ideas, you might be interested in this video. It was prepared for L3 students at Guildford College – it repeats some of these points, though there are some others too.
A few additional thoughts…
Should I do a BACP Accredited course?
In my humble opinion, the BACP have done themselves a disservice in the use of the word ‘accredited’ in two different contexts. I’ve even heard experienced counsellors who are confused by this.
Once you are a REGISTERED counsellor, you can practice professionally in the UK. You do not NEED to go any further with your training other than regular continuing professional development (CPD). However, IF you wish, you can go one step further and with more training and another 350 hours of practice, you can apply to be an accredited member of the BACP. This is entirely a personal choice.
At L4, there are also ‘accredited courses’. This means that the BACP has considered their syllabus, tutors, and quality control processes, and is confident in them. The ONLY advantage that this conveys to students is that once they complete the course, they do not have to sit the ‘certificate of proficiency to practice’ (COP) exam of the BACP. To the training organisation, there is a marketing benefit. However, this process which repeats each year on a rolling basis, is onerous and expensive. This cost is passed on to the students. It’s hard to put a finger on it, but you are probably paying as much as £1000 for this benefit.
To be absolutely clear, attending a BACP Accredited course DOES NOT mean that you emerge as a BACP Accredited member.
The Certificate to Practice (COP) test
I am surprised at the myths that circulate about this test. Some people feel that they are being victimised having to take it, others that it is outrageous to have to do so having spent so much on their training already, and so on.
The COP is a relatively short multiple-choice assessment that you appreciate the ethics involved in practicing as a counsellor. This is an area that many students and practitioners find confusing and causes many complaints to the professional bodies each year. There are around 55000 members of the BACP, I believe, and all of those who are in practice have taken this exam at some time in the past. When it was first introduced, even those who were already practicing had to take it with so many months.
If you do a BACP-accredited course, then it is built into the course itself, rather than being taken later.