Personal Counselling

Introduction:

Should personal counselling for a student counsellor be a must or not a necessary requirement? I believe that the personal counselling for student counsellor should not be a mandatory requirement rather; it could be applicable only when required. In my opinion, personal counselling is for sorting your own issues; it does not make you a better counsellor. Thus I partially agree that all these personal counselling/ therapy requirements for counsellors in training encourage selfish introspection. Counsellors are there to help others, and if they need counselling themselves, they should not be in the job.

Discussion/ Debate:

Personal counselling in the inter psyche course is a must. They believe a counsellor’s main resource is their use of self in relationship to the client. They, therefore, emphasize the importance of self-reflection, self-recognition and self-awareness (course handbook p.35). As a student in inter psyche, the course requires me to complete 30 hours of personal counselling annually.

Chrysalis courses do not advocate their trainee counsellors to undertake their personal counselling as a compulsion as they have personal counselling as a part of their course 2, Chrysalis diploma in counselling skill and theory (Dip) which is based on exploring the client’s past, present and future.

Another course from The Human Givens College (HG Diploma course) supports the same foundation as Chrysalis course.

“People only need counselling when their lives aren’t working. Just as we only need to take medicine when we are ill – and then in the right quantity, and at the right time, from someone who really understands our condition. Those with the aptitude and spare capacity to do this work would not need counselling.” (Human Givens College)

The above quote was taken from the FAQ’s section oh HG diploma.

They believe it’s one of the myth that counsellors and therapists have to undergo many hours of being counselled themselves to qualify. To an extent, I agree with these courses as well when they state that the trainee counsellors are not required to have personal training themselves.

WPF therapy, on the other hand, supports individual personal therapy on a postgraduate diploma level once a week with a WPF therapy training therapist. However, in their selection criteria and application for Diploma in counselling skills (access course), applicants do not have to be in personal therapy during this course. (www.wpf.org.uk, courses)

BACP is the main body which sets the ethical framework for good practice in counselling which provides us with the most up-to-date guidance and support for trainers and students ensuring practitioner of the future are being trained to the highest standards. They also do not consider personal counselling