Counsellors Spotlight

Counsellors play a vital role in working with clients experiencing a wide range of emotional and psychological difficulties, helping them to bring about effective change and/or enhance their wellbeing. Yet many people may not fully understand the breadth of skills, knowledge and settings in which counsellors work.

In this edition, we shine a spotlight on the counselling profession through the experiences of Mat, a counsellor who is one of our Workforce Council members. They share insights into what counsellors do, where they work, what other psychological professionals should know about the role, what a typical counselling session looks like, and the different pathways into the profession. We also explore what makes them proud to be a counsellor and the impact the profession can have on the lives of those they support.

Tell us about what counsellors do

Counsellors work to evoke in their clients the most crucial requirement of life other than food, water and shelter – congruence, the freedom of being who you really are!

There’s a perception that counsellors just explore client’s feelings. Whilst this is crucial, the main aim is to get a good balance of both thoughts and feelings. However, feelings will receive the majority of focus because they are often complicated and difficult to manage. We all hide/ignore feelings to a level but if we ignore important feelings for too long depression is a common consequence. Crucial to helping resolve this is providing the safe space for the development of a deeply trusting therapeutic relationship, enabling clients sometimes to disclose feelings that not only have they never previously expressed to anyone else, but never previously verbalised. This implicit and explicit trust is reached when the client gets a deep sense of being heard. This isn’t just by the spoken word, it largely comes from the counsellor portraying an epistemic acknowledgement and connection to things like body language, facial expression and voice tone. Working with clients to understand where these feelings come from and how they affect them can establish how best to manage them and adjust accordingly to where they now need to be in life. This provides not only a much enhanced and enjoyable sense of being, but a good sense (‘feel’) of future direction. They learn to manage life rather than let life manage them. 

Where do counsellors work?

NHS counsellors do a combination of telephone and video work (often from home) and face to face work at various NHS Talking Therapy premises.

What should psychological professionals understand about counsellors?

In an NHS Talking Therapies Service, counselling is ‘High Intensity Step 3’ work. It is not the easy option and is emotionally exhausting. It isn’t a job, it’s a way of life, a passion – it has to be because of the often intensive therapeutic connection necessary to effect change. Hence with our passionate dedication there is always potential for burnout, especially considering the amount and severity of client traumas we have to deeply connect to.

Owing to the history of how counselling entered and remained within the NHS, whether directly or through subcontracts we feel, understandably, that its process, value and efficacy is not always fully recognised. It’s often fluid, very creative and reliant on a counsellor’s ‘intersubjective’ process – allowing our unconscious to connect deeply with client process but with an inner trust to evoke full awareness at the right time to evoke relevant exploration. Hence it’s not something that can easily be explained at a logical level. 

What does a typical counselling session look like?

There isn’t really a typical counselling session because each and every one of us is totally unique. We all come from not only a totally unique set of life experiences but a unique set of thoughts, feelings and emotions with personal, often idiosyncratic interpretations that drive us both consciously and unconsciously. However, a typical process is working to understand the feelings and emotions that have lost their way through a client’s life, that need updated interpretations to synchronise with where they now are in life. Often clients can be surprised to identify such strong feelings arising from explorations from certain times of their life including the present, from which greater understanding of their process and what changes need to be made can happen. 

How did you become a counsellor? What are the different routes/qualification into becoming a counsellor?

Although there are now schemes currently promoting in house NHS training for those who wish to train as a counsellor, currently the likelihood is that you’ll still have to invest your own time, finances and emotional resource to become qualified before you can work for the NHS. For most this involves acquiring a degree which can be entered with relevant background qualifications, or studying through Levels 2, 3, 4 and 5 to acquire an advanced counselling diploma.

Upon joining an NHS Talking Therapies Service you will be required to work towards accreditation of a nationally recognised professional counselling organisation, and go through NHS top up training (Master’s Level 7) which then qualifies you as an NHS High Intensity Therapist.

What makes you proud and passionate about counselling?

Who wouldn’t be proud to have the congruent foundation that gives every potential to evoke the confidence, intuition, creativity and discernment needed to passionately connect to what we all depend on to emotionally survive – relationships. If the training is good enough and you can let yourself become emotionally available to it, this is what it can do for you!  And there’s the other side of course – the limitless reward of not just knowing, but really ‘feeling’ throughout your core that you have played a big part, a crucial part in making such a positive change in a client’s life. The biggest part of this process comes from the client – they also have to work hard and this must never be overlooked. It is a privilege to be such a part of this. The sum is greater than the parts!

Find out more about counsellors using the PPN Career Map here!

If you are a psychological professional and would like to tell us about your profession please get in contact on This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.