Has anyone reading this done the foundation course in view to becoming a counsel!
Question:
Has anyone reading this done the foundation course in view to becoming a counseller?
Is the course hard ? Do you currently work as a counseller? And be honest , how do you find it as a job?
Thinking of training to become a counsellor because ive been through lots of negative things in my life ,and i thought i could use them as a positive to help others. Be happy . Thanks.
Answers:
Hiya. I did a degree in psychology then did further training in counselling focusing on Child counselling, and I got into it for the same reasons you did.
The thing to remember is, if you want to do it right, it takes years of training. Am a counsellor now, and while the role is a lot less "passive" than psychotherapy, you're still helping people with their mental well being, and it's a big responsibility.
If you do decide to become a counsellor, you yourself will need to be in therapy, or "supervision", and it's really not an easy job to do. Being natually empathetic is a big help, but if you find you get emotionally drawn in to the point where you can't disassociate yourself, it can be so demoralizing and draining.
If you do seriously want to do it, see it as a long process. Counselling doesn't have a governing body in the way therapy does, and a lot of people go into it thinking it's a fast and easy buck, so if you want to do it in order to help people, you'll need to do a foundation course just as a precursor, then train for several more years, and perhaps do work experience with a professional counsellor so you can receive feedback and ease yourself into it.
As negative as I've made it sound, and as hard as it is, I wouldn't want to do anything else.
God bless you bunches.