What is the best way to get a career as a counsellor/psychotherapist (with no background experience)?

Answer 1

I hate to be blunt. but no reputable company is going to hire a counsellor or suchlike without the right qualifications and experience. If anything went wrong they would be hung out to dry in court. It would cost them millions.

You need to get some training under your belt before you can even volunteer basic services for free. In this line of work you'll also be fighting against other trainees for unpaid work placements in order to gain experience!

You can train to be a counsellor far quicker than a psychotherapist. For psychotherapy you'll need degrees in psychology etc followed by a period of either unpaid or very low paid trainee work. It's seriously difficult to get paid trainee work, when I was applying there were around 200 applications for every post.

It's far easier to become a counsellor, but still a long haul. You need to level one foundation course, which can be studied part time at night school or weekend college, then you move on to studying and having a small caseload of cases to work on. The whole process takes about three years. Once again you'll have to fight to find somewhere to let you use their clients for your training, and convince your cases to let an unqualified person work with them. It's not easy.

I would really recommend the night school route to counselling. Its the cheapest option, the courses are regulated so you still get the same teaching full time students get and if it turns out you discover counselling isn't for you it still looks good on your CV and you haven't lost your day job.

Answer 2

Just follow these steps.

1) Read books about psychology and counselling. When you are confident and have a good understanding on the topics, write articles on them and submit to article submission sites like http://www.ezinearticles.com or http://www.goarticles.com

2) Next try working with volunteering organizations, orphanages, charities or non-profit organizations. You will have a good chance to find opportunities as a counsellor/psychotherapists even if you don't have enough experience. Of course, don't expect to be paid.

3) Once you get the head start, you would already have the track record.



egards,

Edmund Ng
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Answer 3

If you are over 21 and in the U.K, just go to the website for the charity Careline. On it they have a careers section and it gives you details of how to become a Psychotherapist/Hypnotist. They will train you and support you and all they ask for is that you are over 21 and can prove that you have some life skills. The course lasts 8 months , but you do have to pay for it.