Course Overview
Please note that due to high demand this course is not accepting any more applications for September 2024.
Course summary
The Postgraduate Diploma in Counselling is a part-time course designed to provide professional training for people considering a career in counselling, psychotherapy and related mental health fields.
In the first two years of training, the diploma will prepare you to be a reflective, knowledgeable practitioner, with self-awareness and competency to work ethically, safely and effectively with a wide range of clients, including Gender, Sexual and Relationship Diversity (GSRD). To achieve this, the course curriculum integrates skills practice, theory, a focus on personal wellbeing and development, research, and professional development. After completion of the Postgraduate Diploma, you can choose to take the Master's component of the course, involving a year-long Research Methods and Project in Counselling module.
This course focuses on two highly influential modalities: psychodynamic therapies and humanistic therapies, which are used in a wide variety of therapeutic settings. In addition to the weekly modules, you’ll attend eight weekend workshops, exploring themes including cognitive behaviour therapy, sex therapy, working in the context of religion and spirituality, mirror work, creative ways of working, and online therapy. Thus, this training will allow you to graduate with in-depth knowledge and skills, and foster the ability to integrate different modalities in your therapeutic work.
There is an additional focus on inclusive training that welcomes differing perspectives, thus promoting empathy for different cultures and ways of living. You’ll directly engage with a variety of different identities such as sexuality, gender, ability, culture and ethnicity, bringing to life the lived experience of a diverse range of clients and allowing you to consider the impact different levels of (dis)advantage and privilege have on your clients. This is important if the field is to better meet the challenges of supporting diverse clients, and will allow you to graduate with the confidence to challenge oppressive structures as a practitioner.
Top reasons to study with us
- Vocational training leads to professionally trained and qualified therapists who are ready to enter the therapeutic professions or related fields
- Students successfully completing this course will be eligible for accreditation as a registered member of the British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy, a further stamp of their professional standing
- Undertake a clinical work placement where you’ll carry out counselling with clients in an appropriate organisation. The course team provide support in helping students find appropriate placements and provide additional supervision
- Explore cutting-edge and influential forms of therapy, including psychodynamic and humanistic therapies as well as sex therapy
- Study in an inclusive environment dedicated to decolonising the curriculum and producing therapists who are equipped to serve diverse clients
- We are an organisational member of the British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy (BACP), which reflects our commitment to providing safe, ethical and professional counselling and psychotherapy training. We are also seeking accreditation with the BACP
- This course is Gender, Sex and Relationship Diverse (GSRD) accredited
Course structure
The Postgraduate Diploma consists of two years of training. Students may choose to undertake the additional Master's component of the course on completion of their Postgraduate Diploma. To achieve the MSc (Top Up) in Counselling award, students must complete the additional year-long Research Methods and Project in Counselling module.
Core modules
In this year-long module, you start to learn and practice a set of foundational counselling skills, develop reflective practice and engage in personal development. You will also start developing an integration between the theoretical concepts and clinical practice. The module includes working with complex issues creatively and safely, weighing up professional and ethical issues, promoting self-direction and awareness, working ethically with diversity and difference, and communicating and promoting wellbeing to varying audiences. Particular attention is placed on the BACP Ethical framework and decision-making when facing clinical dilemmas.
Therapeutic Approaches 1 introduces students to the idea of different models of therapy and different ways of working with clients. It outlines the distinction between specific approaches versus integrative/eclectic/pluralistic frameworks. It then presents knowledge of one specific therapeutic perspective: the humanistic framework, including its theoretical underpinnings and its application to therapeutic practice. The module incorporates historical, social and cultural contexts of the emergence of humanistic approaches to therapy and covers a range of models and issues including the person-centred approach, Gestalt models of thinking and practising therapy, existential therapy; attitudes and qualities of effective counsellors; and the BACP ethical framework. There is also exploration of the historically narrow remit of counselling frameworks that have excluded groups of people from deriving full therapeutic benefits, and promotes inclusive perspectives to understanding and applying therapeutic principles.
Therapeutic Approaches 2 focuses on psychodynamic thinking as applied to therapeutic practice. The module covers a range of psychotherapeutic issues including transference and countertransference, defence mechanisms, perversion, dreams, resistance, diversity, and sex. You are encouraged to engage with psychodynamic issues creatively and safely, reflecting on professional issues, ethical issues and clinical dilemmas, and reflecting on the integration of theory and practice.
The focus of this year-long module is to facilitate a deepening of your knowledge, understanding and skills in relation to different types of therapeutic interventions, therapeutic formulations and relational processes. You will continue working in your placement. The reflection on skills, interventions and processes takes place in the seminars. The module also facilitates students ongoing evaluation of their own personal and professional development. The module content includes advanced psychotherapeutic skills, exploring a range of practical therapeutic interventions, practising different case formulations, and receiving peer supervision. The module promotes working with complex issues creatively and safely, weighing up professional and ethical issues, promoting self-direction and awareness, working ethically with diversity and difference, and communicating and promoting well-being to varying audiences. Particular attention is placed on the BACP accreditation requirements.
This module takes a critical perspective on professional and ethical issues that counsellors are likely to encounter in their everyday clinical practice. The module concentrates on studies/dilemmas/scenarios encountered in everyday counselling practice e.g., suicidality. It covers how to work safely, ethically and professionally in all situations. Relevant professional codes/guidelines will be taken into consideration in covering topics (eg BACP Ethical Framework for the Counselling Professions, NICE guidance). Seminars will involve student-led case studies of dilemmas/challenges for formative feedback (these presentations will then be developed into critical essays for assessment). Role plays will explore challenging client situations. Guest lecturers (eg with lived, NHS, and private practice experiences) will bring the real world into the classroom. How theory is linked to professional practice will also be a focus. The module promotes engagement with complex issues, weighing up professional and ethical issues, self-direction, and working with a range of issues and perspectives.
Therapeutic Approaches 3 is designed to explore the integration of different approaches to therapeutic practice. The module covers the following themes: Models of integration; similarities and differences between integration, assimilation and eclecticism; developing a personal integrative approach; considering wider issues of integration (eg with mental health systems, theory, research, equality and diversity issues); formulating client problems using an integrative framework; and evaluating the effectiveness of an integrative approach.
Students who have not completed the minimum number of hours of personal therapy (25) by the submission deadline for Portfolio 1, will need to apply for mitigating circumstances (to submit the completed portfolio with all required components, at the resit Progression and Award Board. Students who have not completed the recommended number of client counselling hours at the end of the First Year (40), will be allowed to continue with placement into the second year and be required to have completed the minimum required hours (100) by the end of the second year to graduate from their studies. Any student who has outstanding tasks to complete by the end of the second year (e.g., number of client hours, number of personal therapy hours) will be able to submit mitigating circumstances to request a deferral to the submission of their portfolio. Their graduation will be considered at the next available Progression and Assessment Board. This module is assessed on a Pass/Fail basis.
Optional MSc Top Up
This module aims to foster the knowledge, understanding and skills necessary to formulate and implement research questions that are suitable to investigate a counselling-related problem. The content includes addressing issues pertaining to research philosophy; approaches to research; range of methodologies in investigating counselling-related problems; data collection and analysis for different research designs; and appropriate presentation of research findings. Key themes in research, including arguments around validity, evidence-base, representation of research participants, and the reproducibility crisis, will be explored within a decolonising perspective.
Professional recognition
The Counselling PG Diploma has met the criteria and quality standards laid down by Pink Therapy as a safe place for Gender, Sex and Relationship Diverse (GSRD) identified people to train and with a curriculum that is inclusive, evidence-based and reflective of current thinking about GSRD Theory and Practice.
After graduation, students can register with the British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy (BACP) as a registered counsellor working towards accreditation.
For more details on course structure, modules, teaching and assessment Download the programme specification (PDF).
To request an accessible version please email [email protected]
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Careers
Successful completion of this course will prepare you to be a reflective, knowledgeable practitioner, with self-awareness and competency to work ethically, safely and effectively with clients.
During your training you will also liaise with external counselling agencies to do your practice. This will allow you to understand the organisational aspects of counselling and develop your skills in working in a counselling agency.
The University’s Careers and Employability Service has built up a network of over 3,000 employers around the world, helping you to explore and connect with exciting opportunities and careers.
Take the first step in your career
Graduates will be eligible for accreditation as a registered member of the British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy.
Gain practical experience
Undertake a clinical placement and gain valuable experience of counselling clients.
Serve a diverse range of clients
Our focus on inclusive training will prepare you to support the needs of clients from all walks of life.
Industry links
Our course team have over 20 years of experience both professionally and academically, with experience ranging from the NHS to working in charities and agencies as supervisors and clinical managers. The team also have relationships with the European Association of Counsellors and are seeking to gain accreditation from the British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy (BACP) and Gender, Sexual and Relationships Diversity (GSRD).
Graduate employers
Graduates from this course will be equipped to work in a wide variety of settings. These include working within the NHS, university counselling services, school-based counselling, charity organisations, private practice, academic departments, and research. The course will also have equipped students, through transferable skills, to work in a wide variety of other fields such as personal and executive coaching, business fields, among many other settings.
Job roles
This course will prepare you for roles in a variety of areas, including:
- Advice worker
- Career advisor
- Counsellor
- Family Support Worker (with a top up training)
- High Intensity Therapist (NHS)
- Mental health practitioner
- Mental health worker
- Personal or executive coach
- Psychological Wellbeing Practitioner
- Psychotherapist
- School therapist
- SENCO
- Social Worker
Westminster Employability Award
Employers value graduates who have invested in their personal and professional development – and our Westminster Employability Award gives you the chance to formally document and demonstrate these activities and achievements.
The award is flexible and can be completed in your own time, allowing you to choose from a set of extracurricular activities.
Activities might include gaining experience through a part-time job or placement, signing up to a University-run scheme – such as mentoring or teaching in a school – or completing online exercises.
Read more about our Westminster Employability Award.
Course Leaders
Life is full of challenges and experiences. Society emphasises positive thinking; however, we cannot be positive all the time. In my journey to become a therapist, Freud’s quote reminds me that I need to attend to all of me, as 'out of your vulnerabilities will come your strength'.
Dr Nikolaos Souvlakis
Senior Lecturer
Dr Nikolaos Souvlakis is a psychoanalyst and medical anthropologist with more than 20 years of clinical practice in the UK, USA and Europe. He is the vice-president of the European Association for Counsellors and his work ranges from early trauma to sex issues and spirituality. Dr Souvlakis’ personal experiences led him to embark on his journey in psychotherapy by studying Lacanian Psychoanalysis. He then trained as a psychodynamic psychotherapist and Gestalt clinical supervisor. He is also a Personality and Occupational psychometric tester. He has many years of experience as clinical manager and supervisor, from Ealing Council, Mind and other organisations. He has also led counselling programmes previously. He is an accredited member of BACP, EAC and GSRD.
Dr Sanjay Joban
Senior Lecturer
Sanjay has been at the University of Westminster since 1992 and is Course Leader for the Psychology and Counselling BSc and Counselling MSc. He completed his first degree in Psychology at the North-East London Polytechnic (now University of East London) in 1985. This was followed by an MSc and CQSW in Applied Social Studies at Royal Holloway College, University of London. He completed his PhD in 2003, exploring the experiences of Black and Asian students studying psychology in higher education. This theme guided his research over a 20-year period.
Sanjay is a qualified, practising therapist and a Registered Member of the British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy. His training was in integrative counselling and psychotherapy at the University of East London. Sanjay’s therapeutic orientation is pluralistic and incorporates humanistic-existential principles, trauma-informed therapy, and mindfulness-based approaches including compassion-focused therapy. He is also a certified coach, having received his training through the Institute of Learning and Management.
See full profileSee full profile of Dr Sanjay Joban
The importance of counselling for the wellbeing of individuals and society is being increasingly recognised.
Course Team
In addition to the academics listed below, external professionals and experts in the field of counselling and psychotherapy will contribute to lectures and workshops.
Why study this course?
Professional Recognition
Graduates will be eligible for accreditation as a registered member of the British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy.
Learn from Experts
Our course team has more than 20 years of experience, with several working in the field alongside teaching.
Explore influential approaches
Our focus on psychodynamic and humanistic therapies will allow you to graduate with in-depth knowledge.
Entry Requirements
A minimum of a lower second-class honours degree (2:2). Applicants will also be considered on the basis of previous work experience. Applicants are expected to have done some relevant work experience or further training in a counselling-related field. Applicants who have been shortlisted will be invited for an interview.
If your first language is not English, you should have an IELTS 6.5 with at least 6.0 in writing.
Recognition of prior learning and experience
If you have previously studied at university level, or have equivalent work experience, academic credit may be awarded towards your course at Westminster. For more information, visit our Recognition of Prior Learning page.
Application process
Visit our How to apply page for more information on:
- the application process
- what you need to apply
- deadlines for application
A minimum of a lower second-class honours degree (2:2). Applicants will also be considered on the basis of previous work experience. Applicants are expected to have done some relevant work experience or further training in a counselling-related field. Applicants who have been shortlisted will be invited for an interview.
If your first language is not English, you should have an IELTS 6.5 with at least 6.0 in writing.
Recognition of prior learning and experience
If you have previously studied at university level, or have equivalent work experience, academic credit may be awarded towards your course at Westminster. For more information, visit our Recognition of Prior Learning page.
Application process
Visit our How to apply page for more information on:
- the application process
- what you need to apply
- deadlines for application
More information
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Fees and Funding
UK tuition fee: £4,250 (Price per academic year)
When you have enrolled with us, your annual tuition fees will remain the same throughout your studies with us. We do not increase your tuition fees each year.
Find out how we set our tuition fees.
Paying your fees
If you don't wish to pay the whole amount of your fees at once, you may be able to pay by instalments. This opportunity is available if you have a personal tuition fee liability of £2,000 or more and if you are self-funded or funded by the Student Loans Company.
Find out more about paying your fees.
Alumni discount
This course is eligible for an alumni discount. Find out if you are eligible and how to apply by visiting our Alumni discounts page.
Funding
There is a range of funding available that may help you fund your studies, including Student Finance England (SFE).
Find out more about postgraduate student funding options.
Scholarships
The University is dedicated to supporting ambitious and outstanding students and we offer a variety of scholarships to eligible postgraduate students.
Find out if you qualify for one of our scholarships.
Additional costs
See what you may need to pay for separately and what your tuition fees cover.
International tuition fee: £5,500 (Price per academic year)
When you have enrolled with us, your annual tuition fees will remain the same throughout your studies with us. We do not increase your tuition fees each year.
Find out how we set our tuition fees.
Paying your fees
If you don't wish to pay the whole amount of your fees at once, you may be able to pay by instalments. This opportunity is available if you have a personal tuition fee liability of £2,000 or more and if you are self-funded or funded by the Student Loans Company.
Find out more about paying your fees.
Alumni discount
This course is eligible for an alumni discount. Find out if you are eligible and how to apply by visiting our Alumni discounts page.
Funding
There are a number of funding schemes available to help you fund your studies with us.
Find out more about funding for international students.
Scholarships
The University is dedicated to supporting ambitious and outstanding students and we offer a variety of scholarships to eligible postgraduate students.
Find out if you qualify for one of our scholarships.
Additional costs
See what you may need to pay for separately and what your tuition fees cover.
Teaching and Assessment
Below you will find how learning time and assessment types are distributed on this course. The graphs below give an indication of what you can expect through approximate percentages, taken either from the experience of previous cohorts, or based on the standard module diet where historic course data is unavailable. Changes to the division of learning time and assessment may be made in response to feedback and in accordance with our terms and conditions.
How you’ll be taught
Teaching methods across all our postgraduate courses focus on active student learning through lectures, seminars, workshops, problem-based and blended learning, and where appropriate practical application. Learning typically falls into two broad categories:
- Scheduled hours: examples include lectures, seminars, practical classes, workshops, supervised time in a studio
- Independent study: non-scheduled time in which students are expected to study independently. This may include preparation for scheduled sessions, dissertation/final project research, follow-up work, wider reading or practice, completion of assessment tasks, or revision
How you’ll be assessed
Our postgraduate courses include a variety of assessments, which typically fall into two broad categories:
- Practical: examples include presentations, podcasts, blogs
- Coursework: examples include essays, in-class tests, portfolios, dissertation
Data from the academic year 2023/24
Research groups
Our research achieves real-world impact and we are proud to claim a rich and diverse profile of high-quality research and knowledge exchange in a wide range of disciplines.
Find out more about our research groups related to this course:
Supporting you
Our Student Hub is where you’ll find out about the services and support we offer, helping you get the best out of your time with us.
- Study support — workshops, 1-2-1 support and online resources to help improve your academic and research skills
- Personal tutors — support you in fulfilling your academic and personal potential
- Student advice team — provide specialist advice on a range of issues including funding, benefits and visas
- Extra-curricular activities — volunteering opportunities, sports and fitness activities, student events and more
Course location
With state-of-the-art science and psychology labs and refurbished computer suites, our Cavendish Campus offers our science and technology students a range of learning spaces that are both dynamic and inspiring,
Located in central London, our Cavendish Campus is just a five-minute walk from Oxford Street and Tottenham Court Road.
For more details, visit our Cavendish Campus page.
Contact us
Call our dedicated team on:
+44 (0)20 7911 5000 ext 65511
Opening hours (GMT): 10am–4pm Monday to Friday
Opening hours (GMT): 10am–4pm Monday to Friday
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