‘All these personal counselling/therapy requirements for counsellors in training encourage selfish introspection. Counsellors are there to help others, and if they need counselling themselves, they should not be in the job.’
I am a counsellor in training on an integrative diploma course, which has a mandatory sixty hours of personal therapy that students must undertake. Here I will explore what other institutions expect their students to undertake, if any, and their reasons for this. I will also explore what could the intended or unintended consequences of these be, what the positives and negatives of being in therapy are and what my own opinion to this statement is. I will also look at my own experience of counselling and whether or not counselling will be impactful to everyone during the course. The British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy (BACP), our professional body, removed the mandatory aspect a few years ago stating that the psycho-dynamic approach believed that forty hours isn’t long enough personal therapy whilst in training, the person-centred approach believed that personal therapy should be undertaken when the person is ready. They state that their criteria for accredited courses are, ‘Courses should ensure that trainees gain experience of being in the client role.’
I have found that there is a huge debate on this, some theorists believe it should be included within the training (Atkinson,2006) and some argue that it should not be mandatory (Wiseman & Shefler, 2001).
After much researching, I found very few institutions that didn’t have mandatory personal therapy. The Counselling and Psychotherapy Central Awarding Body (CPCAB) courses that I contacted all have either a ten, twenty or thirty-hour mandatory personal therapy for their students over two years. They do say that if they feel they need more then they can make that choice