Foundation in Counselling and Psychotherapy Graduate Certificate - level 6

Our Graduate Certificate Foundation in Counselling and Psychotherapy has been designed to provide you with a pathway to full clinical training as a counsellor or psychotherapist. You will be able to demonstrate your readiness for academic study with an undergraduate degree or equivalent qualification. You will also need to be working in a related profession, such as social work, psychology, medicine/nursing, teaching or coaching, or have significant experience of direct work with people in an emotionally supportive role. Applicants with a psychology undergraduate degree that included placement experience may also be considered.

Why choose this course?

* You will learn about key concepts in counselling and psychotherapy with a focus on the psychodynamic method and psychosocial/organisational perspectives.

* Our counselling courses are taught by experienced and practising clinicians.

* This course will enable you to make informed choices about whether counselling and psychotherapy training is right for you.

What will I learn?

You will be taught the significance of developmental life stages and the impact of these on the counselling relationship. You will also develop counselling skills in practical listening exercises and engage in a process of personal development through various experiential learning activities.

On completion of this course, you will be equipped with knowledge and understanding about the principles of counselling, developmental issues and psychodynamic theory and method. You will also have gained important foundational listening skills and have begun to develop the emotional sensibility necessary to apply to clinical training.

How will I learn?

You will study the theory of this subject area through texts, lectures and seminars. Your counselling skills will be developed through class exercises and practice sessions in small groups, in which you will rotate through the roles of client, counsellor and observer.

Your self-awareness will be developed through experiential exercises as well as group participation to learn first hand about some of the key dynamics and processes that occur in groups and organisations.

This course is available to study part-time, with evening classes if you start in October, or Saturday morning classes if you start in January.

Highlights

* Successful completion of this foundational course offers you the chance to apply for clinical training at Birkbeck with our MSc Psychodynamic Counselling and Psychotherapy and MSc Psychodynamic Counselling and Psychotherapy with Children and Adolescents.

* Birkbeck has 50 years' experience of teaching psychodynamic counselling and practice and an excellent reputation with employers.

* We have a distinctive multidisciplinary psychosocial perspective with academics coming from backgrounds in anthropology, cultural and postcolonial studies, education studies, gender and sexuality studies, literary studies, critical psychology, psychoanalytic studies and sociology.

Careers and employability

This course will enable you to make informed choices about whether counselling and psychotherapy training is right for you.

On completion, you will be ready to apply to clinical training, including Birkbeck's MSc Psychodynamic Counselling and Psychotherapy and MSc Psychodynamic Counselling and Psychotherapy with Children and Adolescents.

If you choose to continue in your current work role, you will have acquired valuable skills and understanding which can increase your professional effectiveness, especially if you are in a helping role or working with people in some capacity.

Graduates from our MSc clinical training courses go on to work as counsellors and psychotherapists in a range of settings, often related to the placements they undertook while training.