Overview
This course is a professional practitioner training in Counselling and Psychotherapy. Its aim is to develop reflective and skilled practitioners who will have attained the requisite knowledge, personal development and competence to provide Counselling and Psychotherapy in a professional manner. The core theoretical orientation of the course is integrative. The core humanistic elements are Person Centred, Gestalt and Transactional Analysis. The course also draws substantially from the relational end of Psychoanalysis. Some elements from the Cognitive and Behavioural traditions are also included.
Work with Clients
Students will be required to carry out 120 hours of Counselling work with clients during the training. They will be required to obtain supervision for this work from a supervisor nominated by MTU. Payment for supervision will be made directly by students and is not included in the course fee.
Personal Therapy
Students will be required to have undertaken at least 100 sessions of personal therapy before the completion of their training. The cost of this is separate to the course and is arranged directly between the student and the therapist.
Dual Relationships
Due to the personal and experiential nature of the course, it is generally not possible to have staff or students with significant existing personal or professional relationships in the same course groups. Where possible, every effort is made to overcome this difficulty by placing them in separate groups. Oftentimes this solution is not possible, and in these instances, a dual relationship may prevent the applicant from being offered a place on the course at that time.
Course Delivery
- Full-time (delivered evenings and weekends/career-friendly hours).
The course is offered over two semesters from September to May each year. Each semester has 5 modules. The regular sessions will be held on two evenings per week 6.30pm to 9.30pm. Alternatively, some of the evening sessions could be transferred to Saturday. When a Saturday is involved it would replace two evening sessions. During BA 1, there will be two EGP weekend workshops in addition to the regular weekly sessions.
The course has five key elements which are integrated in the training, using a strong experiential and practical focus. These are:
- Counselling and Psychotherapy Theory and Application
- Practitioner Development
- Experiential Group Process/Personal Process Integration
- Supervised Counselling and Psychotherapy Practice
- Counselling and Psychotherapy integration
Award
On successful completion of the full programme, students will be awarded a Bachelor of Arts (Honours) in Counselling and Psychotherapy. On achieving the honours degree, graduates will be equipped to carry out Counselling and Psychotherapy in a structured setting with the support of supervision. The BA honours degree is a fully validated professional Counselling and Psychotherapy training programme which satisfies the accreditation requirements of the Irish Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy.