This course is subject to final awarding body approval. Delivery will proceed once approval is confirmed.
Why Many Level 4 Courses Leave Graduates Underprepared
You can complete a Level 4 diploma and still feel unprepared for private practice. The qualification exists. The readiness does not. Common gaps leave graduates credentialed but not confident.
Limited
Self-Awareness
Personal work gets squeezed into hurried workshops. Students learn theory but rarely examine their own patterns, blocks, or relational habits. Self-awareness stays shallow.
Weak Practice Confidence
Skills practice focuses on technique, not presence. Students can demonstrate interventions but freeze when the first private client books. Knowing what to do differs from feeling ready to do it.
Poor Practice Preparation
Courses teach client work but not practice building. Students qualify without understanding referrals, boundaries, fees, contracts, or what running a practice actually requires. The business side remains invisible.
Tutor
Turnover
Tutors rotate or leave after Year 1. Continuity breaks. The relational safety needed for deep work never builds. Students adapt to new tutors instead of deepening with familiar ones.
This course addresses these gaps directly. Training centres on self-awareness, relational depth, and practice readiness. Tutors stay with your cohort across both years. Emotional safety holds. Depth accumulates.
How Monthly Weekends Support Deeper Learning
Training runs across Friday to Sunday weekends, once per month. Weekends follow the academic calendar with breaks at Christmas, Easter, and summer.
FRIDAY
9.30am to 6.00pm
SATURDAY
9.30am to 6.00pm
SUNDAY
9.30am to 4.00pm
Why This Structure Works
Arrive
Fresh
Weekly evening courses drain energy. You finish work, travel, then try to focus while your mind processes the day. Monthly weekends remove that friction. You protect the dates. You arrive rested. Learning does not compete with exhaustion.
Depth Without Fragmentation
Teaching builds across three uninterrupted days. Group work deepens. Personal insights land. You do not rush to the next session. Integration happens naturally. Learning holds instead of scattering across weeks.
Integration
Time
You leave with time to absorb what emerged. Uncomfortable feelings need space. Relational patterns need time to notice. Change needs room to settle. Weekend blocks provide that room between sessions.
Time Commitment Beyond Weekends
Weekends are not the only demand. You will read, reflect, write assignments, attend supervision, and see clients. Expect 8 to 12 hours per week outside teaching weekends when client work begins.
This course disrupts life. It requires support from family, employers, and friends. You will miss events. You will turn down invitations. You will spend time on yourself in ways that feel selfish until you understand why it matters.
If your life cannot absorb this disruption, this course will not work.
What Person-Centred Training Means Here
Person-centred therapy follows the work of Carl Rogers. The approach trusts that people move toward growth when conditions allow. Those conditions include empathy, congruence, and unconditional positive regard.
Not Technique-Driven
You do not apply interventions. You do not fix problems. You meet the person. You stay present. You trust the process. The counsellor provides the relational environment. The client directs the work.
Presence Over Questions
Your presence matters more than your questions. Your congruence matters more than your insights. Your capacity to stay with discomfort matters more than your ability to resolve it.
Who You Are Matters
Person-centred therapy depends on who you are, not what you do. Training therefore focuses on developing you. This is uncomfortable. This is the work.
How This Shapes Your Training
Group
Work
Explores your relational patterns. You will notice how you protect yourself, how you connect, how you avoid. Group becomes the mirror.
Personal Development
Challenges your self-concept. You will sit with feelings that have no easy resolution. You will recognise ways you limit yourself and your clients.
Supervision
Examines how your history shows up with clients. Your past patterns meet their present struggles. Supervision helps you notice the difference.
Tutor
Modelling
Tutors model the conditions you will later offer clients. Empathy, congruence, and unconditional regard become lived experience, not theory.
Person-Centred Purity and Integration
This course teaches person-centred therapy as the core approach.
You will encounter other theories for context. CBT, psychodynamic models, and attachment theory appear in teaching. You learn enough to understand referrals, speak with colleagues, and recognise when a client needs something beyond your scope.
But you train as a person-centred practitioner.
If you want integrative training, look elsewhere. If you want person-centred depth, this course delivers it.
Beyond Tick-Box Training
Most counselling training focuses on demonstrating competence. Students learn to perform skills, tick criteria, and pass assessments. This produces qualified counsellors who know what to do but struggle with who they are in the room.
This course takes a different path. We train you to move from performance to process. From doing counselling to being a counsellor.
LEVEL 2
Demonstrating Skills
Level 2 training centres on performing counselling skills correctly. You learn to reflect, paraphrase, and summarise. You demonstrate competence. This is necessary foundation work. You prove you can do the basics.
LEVEL 3
Noticing
Process
Level 3 shifts focus. You still use skills, but now you notice what happens inside you while using them. What do you feel when the client cries? Where do you tighten when they challenge you? Process becomes visible.
LEVEL 4
Being in
Process
Level 4 deepens this completely. You do not perform skills or observe process. You inhabit it. You become present to yourself and the client simultaneously. This is relational depth. This is counselling as presence, not technique.
A Quiet Revolution
This is not dramatic. This is not loud. This is a quiet revolution in how counsellors are trained.
We refuse to reduce counselling to competency frameworks and assessment criteria. We refuse to pretend that performing empathy equals being empathic. We refuse to graduate students who can tick boxes but cannot sit with themselves.
This training demands you become the kind of person who can offer relational depth. Not someone who knows about it. Someone who lives it.
If you want a qualification that fits around your life without disrupting it, look elsewhere. If you want training that changes who you are so you can change how clients experience themselves, this course exists for that.
What Makes This Training Different
Premium positioning comes from how we deliver training, not just what we teach. These differences shape the depth and safety of your learning experience.
Person-Centred Purity
This training does not dilute the person-centred approach. You train in one modality with depth. Integration comes later if you choose. Depth before breadth.
Emotional Safety Container
Small cohorts and consistent tutors create the conditions for discomfort without harm. You can explore difficult patterns because the relational environment holds. Safety enables challenge.
Small Cohorts of 12 to 14
Smaller groups mean more tutor attention, deeper relationships, and richer group process. You are seen. Your learning matters. You do not disappear into a crowd.
Range of Tutors Across Weekends
While two core tutors stay with your cohort, additional tutors contribute across the programme. You experience different styles, perspectives, and expertise. Learning broadens without losing continuity.
From Training to Practice
Qualification prepares you for professional work. This includes client work, professional membership, supervision, and building a practice.
100 Client Hours Required
You complete at least 100 counselling hours with a minimum of 5 different clients. This happens in agency settings during Year 2. Client work is mandatory for qualification.
You Find Your Placement
You are responsible for securing your own placement with a suitable counselling agency. We provide guidance on what makes an agency suitable and vet your chosen agency for safety and training quality.
Professional Membership Required
Student membership with BACP or NCPS is required during training. This ensures you work within a recognised ethical framework and have access to professional support.
After Qualification
Student membership converts to individual membership post-qualification. This gives you access to professional directories where clients find counsellors, including Psychology Today, BACP Directory, and Counselling Directory.
You can work in agency settings, develop a private practice, or progress to postgraduate study. This qualification meets requirements for Masters programmes and routes to BACP or NCPS accreditation.
Your Journey Through the Two Years
The diploma unfolds across two years. Each year builds on the previous. Learning deepens. Client work begins. Professional identity forms.
YEAR ONE
Foundations and Self-Awareness
Year 1 establishes the foundations. You learn person-centred theory, develop counselling skills, and begin personal development work. Group process explores your relational patterns. Personal therapy starts. You prepare for client work.
Focus areas include therapeutic presence, empathy, congruence, boundaries, and ethical practice. By the end of Year 1, you secure a placement for Year 2 client work.
YEAR TWO
Client Work and Integration
Year 2 deepens everything. You see clients in agency settings, attend supervision, and integrate theory with practice. Group training supervision examines your client work. Personal development intensifies.
You complete 100 client hours, write case studies, present cases to peers, and demonstrate proficiency across all assessment criteria. Learning becomes lived experience.
What Happens During a Typical Weekend
Weekends blend teaching, skills practice, group work, and personal development. You might start Friday with theory input, move to skills practice in pairs, then sit in group process exploring what emerged.
Saturday deepens the work. Sunday integrates. Tutors facilitate rather than lecture. Learning comes from experience, not instruction. You leave different from when you arrived.
Who This Training Serves
This diploma suits people who seek serious practitioner training. You hold a clear sense of direction. You accept emotional challenge. You value integrity over shortcuts.
Career Changers
Professionals changing direction after long careers in law, finance, medicine, education, or corporate leadership. You bring life experience and seek meaningful work.
Building Private Practice
People preparing for private practice or self-employed work. You want more than agency employment. You need training that prepares you for the reality of building and sustaining your own practice.
Level 3 Graduates
Students completing Level 3 who want to qualify as counsellors. You have tasted the work and chosen to commit. This is your natural next step.
Entry Requirements
CPCAB Level 3 in Counselling Studies (or equivalent) is mandatory.
All applicants attend an interview. Entry follows careful selection. Readiness matters more than speed. Age varies. Backgrounds vary. Commitment does not.
Who This Is Not For
This course demands emotional resilience, time commitment, and willingness to be challenged. If the following describes you, this training will not work.
You Want a Tick-Box Qualification
If you want to complete criteria and move on, this course will frustrate you. We train for depth, not certification. Assessment matters, but transformation matters more.
Your Life Cannot Absorb Disruption
This course demands weekends, study time, client hours, supervision, and personal work. If you cannot protect monthly weekends or commit 8 to 12 hours weekly during Year 2, this will not work.
The Fee Creates Financial Strain
If the course fee causes anxiety or requires unsustainable sacrifice, look for more affordable training. Financial pressure compounds emotional pressure. This course already demands enough.
You Want to Avoid Looking at Yourself
This training centres on self-awareness. You will notice uncomfortable patterns. You will sit with difficult feelings. You will recognise how you protect yourself and limit others. If you want to stay comfortable, this course will not suit you.
You Prefer Performative Training
If you want to learn techniques, demonstrate skills, and perform competence, many excellent courses offer that. This course trains you to inhabit process, not perform it. If that distinction feels unnecessary, this training is not for you.
You Are Uncertain About Counselling
This training suits people with clear direction. You may not know exactly where counselling will take you, but you know you want to do this work. Curiosity without commitment will not sustain you through two years.
These boundaries protect both you and the training. If this course is not right for you, another one will be. Better to know now than halfway through Year 1.
Practical Information
Duration and Structure
Two years, part-time. 420 Guided Learning Hours delivered across monthly Friday to Sunday weekends. Approximately one weekend every four weeks during academic terms.
Intakes
September Intake: Starts mid-September
January Intake: Starts late January
Both intakes join shared teaching from January onward. Dates subject to final confirmation.
Locations
Training takes place in accessible locations including Oxford, Durham, Cambridge, and London. Venues prioritise calm, space, and proximity to major transport routes. Final venues confirmed with each intake.
Entry Requirements
CPCAB Level 3 Diploma in Counselling Skills or equivalent qualification is mandatory. All applicants attend an interview. Entry follows careful selection.
Fee Structure
Course Fee: £8,500 total for two years
Payment Structure: 10 monthly instalments from February to November each year. This avoids financially tight months and spreads cost manageably.
This fee reflects tutor continuity, small cohorts, weekend delivery, and depth of training. Premium positioning comes from how we train, not what we charge.
Professional Membership
Student membership with BACP or NCPS is required during training. Membership fees are separate from course fees.
After qualification, student membership converts to individual membership. This provides access to professional directories including Psychology Today, BACP Directory, and Counselling Directory.
Organisational Membership
The School of Counselling is an organisational member of BACP. Our courses are recognised by BACP and NCPS as routes to individual membership post-qualification.
This course is subject to final awarding body approval. Delivery will proceed once approval is confirmed. This status is made explicit throughout the application process.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is this course suitable alongside full-time work?
Yes, for those able to protect one full weekend per month and additional study time between weekends. Expect 8 to 12 hours per week outside teaching weekends during Year 2 when client work begins.
This is manageable for many professionals, but it requires planning, support, and commitment. If your work demands unpredictable hours or frequent weekend commitments, this structure may not work.
What makes this course different from other Level 4 diplomas?
Tutor continuity across both years. Small cohorts of 12 to 14 students. Person-centred depth without dilution. Training that prioritises process over performance.
Many Level 4 courses meet minimum standards. This course exceeds them. You pay more because you receive more.
Do I need Level 3 before starting Level 4?
Yes. CPCAB Level 3 Diploma in Counselling Skills or equivalent is mandatory. This ensures you enter Level 4 with foundational skills and readiness for deeper work.
If you completed Level 2 and Level 3 with us, you already understand our approach. If you trained elsewhere, the interview explores readiness and fit.
Will you help me find a placement?
No. You are responsible for securing your own placement with a suitable counselling agency. We provide guidance on what makes an agency suitable and vet your chosen agency for safety and training quality.
This reflects the professional autonomy required in qualified practice. Most students find placements through local counselling agencies, charities, or GP surgeries.
What if I cannot find a placement?
Placement is a mandatory requirement. You must have a placement confirmed before progressing to Year 2. If finding a placement proves difficult, we can discuss options during individual tutorials.
Students typically secure placements 3 to 6 months before Year 2 begins. Starting the search early helps.
Is emotional resilience really required?
Yes. This training involves deep personal work, uncomfortable group process, and challenging client work. You will notice difficult patterns. You will sit with unresolved feelings. You will be challenged by tutors and peers.
Emotional resilience does not mean having no struggles. It means having the capacity to stay present with struggle and seek support when needed.
Can I defer or take a break during the two years?
Breaks between Year 1 and Year 2 may be possible for health or personal reasons. The maximum break permitted is one academic year. You would need to discuss this with the course director.
This option is not intended for students experiencing difficulties with the course. Deferral is for unavoidable life circumstances, not as a pause from learning.
What happens after I qualify?
You can work in agency settings, build a private practice, or progress to postgraduate study. This qualification meets requirements for Masters programmes and routes to BACP or NCPS accreditation.
Your student membership with BACP or NCPS converts to individual membership. This gives you access to professional directories where clients find counsellors.
How does the January intake work?
January intake begins their Year 1 in late January. September intake begins their Year 1 in mid-September. Both intakes join shared teaching from January of the second year onward.
This creates richer group dialogue and wider perspectives while maintaining cohort identity. Both intakes complete the same curriculum and receive the same qualification.
Why does this course cost more than other Level 4 training?
Tutor continuity, small cohorts, weekend delivery, person-centred depth, and practice preparation all cost more to deliver. We do not cut corners on staffing, group size, or training quality.
This is an investment in transformation, not just certification. If cost is the primary consideration, more affordable training exists. If depth and quality matter most, this course justifies the fee.
Is this a fast-track qualification?
No. The programme prioritises depth, integration, and readiness for client work over speed. Two years is the minimum time needed to develop self-awareness and relational presence at the level qualified practice requires.
If you want to qualify quickly, this course will disappoint you.
What does person-centred training mean in practice?
Person-centred training focuses on who you are, not what you do. You learn to offer empathy, congruence, and unconditional positive regard through lived experience, not technique.
Group work explores your patterns. Personal development challenges your self-concept. Tutors model the conditions you will later offer clients. This is uncomfortable, necessary, and transformative.
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