Program Overview

September 2023 applications

Applications for September 2023 are currently closed. If spaces become available, applications for September will reopen in early May 2023.

This long-established and hugely popular course is fully accredited by the British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy (BACP).

It is designed to provide training in an integrative approach to counselling and psychotherapy. It will enable you to develop your own synthesis within a framework which is not tied to a particular theoretical school or perspective. We follow current research into what actually works in counselling and psychotherapy, which means we use an integrative approach, employing a variety of techniques to respond to the needs and preferences of individual clients.

Typically, students on this course will have first degrees in other subjects, and they may be employed either part-time or full-time.

You may be working in health, social care or education - but you don't have to be.

This course (two years for the Diploma) is ideally suited to those with a part-time job, although it can also work for those with full-time commitments. The basis of study for the Postgraduate Diploma is one afternoon/evening per week.

The two-year Postgraduate Diploma allows you to practice as a BACP registered counsellor.  Completion of the diploma confers automatic entry to the MA Counselling and Psychotherapy final year which is a popular choice for our students. (Only the Masters is eligible for a student loan from SFE.)

The Postgraduate Diploma entails completing 100 hours of supervised work, which will be undertaken on a placement which you have to secure for yourself. However, the School has established links with  many agencies and practices where our students have worked over the years.

You may take these skills back into your workplace, use them for a change of career, or develop your own specialist practice.