Professional Practice in Counselling Online Course

The psychological health of the counsellor is crucial in determining the success of the counselling relationship. A counsellor owes it to the client not to engage in counselling whilst experiencing problems of their own.

This course will help you provide appropriate professional practices and attitudes necessary to develop a healthy client-counsellor relationship.

Pre-requisites: It is assumed anyone undertaking this course will already have a basic grounding in psychology and counselling, at least equivalent to the “Introduction to Psychology” course offered through this school.

Course Aims:

• Discuss some of the main personal qualities that counselling will draw upon and demonstrate an awareness of the types of issues that new counsellors will need to resolve within themselves.
• Raise awareness of: the ethical issues that arise within the profession, legal requirements, informed consent, decision-making and other related topics.
• Gain insight into how the self, and one’s perception of the self influences both the client and the counsellor, and to understand the effect of the self upon relationships both within and outside the counselling process.
• Enhance awareness of what is considered a healthy personality, to consider different types of personality tests, and to become aware of the application of different approaches to personality within the counselling process.
• Explain how emotions arise, what they are, how they influence our bodies, minds and behaviour, and their role in the counselling process.
• Understand the necessity for counsellors to have ongoing supervision throughout their professional career and to be constantly striving to upgrade their skills.
• Delineate circumstances in which it is preferable to refer a client on to another health care professional, and to understand some of the main disorders that they may encounter.