The disgusting state of UK counsellor training

In my journey as a trainee counsellor I was not surprised, but quite disspointed at the lack of professionalism training establishments displayed. Having worked in private, public and the charity sector in the UK, I feel I have a good sense of what to expect when paying for training.

But this post is more about the placement, an essential component of any practitioner training. In the UK to train as a medical doctor, one undertakes many different placements in different parts of the NHS. How else will trainee doctors gain competency?

In the UK to train as a clinical psychologist (a protected title) one undertakes many different placements in different parts of the NHS. There’s a theme here. Both are paid, by the way.

In the UK, to train as a cognitive behavioural therapist, you gain a paid role, (the work experience) which includes (paid for) training. So it’s the other way around to the other two, but the essence is the same: you get work experience and get paid. This role is recognised within the NHS.

In the UK, to train as a relational, humanistic counsellor or psychotherapist, who may well work in the NHS too, you find a place on a course much like a medical doctor or clinical psychologist: you will check you meet the criteria; you will apply. If you make it through that stage, you will have an interview. It may be 1-1, online or in person. It may be a group assessment, where you are expected to interact in a group (this is training to become a 1-1 therapist incidentally, not a group analyst). And then if the course leaders have time and resources, there may be a face to face interview and/or role play. There is a high demand for places, so it’s not a given to get on a course.

And if you get through these gates, you then have to pay. It’s not cheap.

So up to now, the gateway experience similar to a doctor or clinical psychologist. You will pay for your course. Much like a doctor. (Clinical psychologists are employed by the NHS and have their fees paid).

Differences

You then have to find your own placement. There may be assistance from your course, but most likely, you do your own research and applications as though it were a paid employment you were seeking.

Often placements are informal. Email the right person at the right time, and a placement is yours. Other times, there is a formal process: application, essay style questions. Then you may be selected for interview, and a formal interview will follow, with a panel, more questions about your motivations and past experience and self awareness, and maybe a role play.

Is this starting to feel like deja vu?! For me, when it dawned on me that I was going to have to go through a very similar process to that I had just been through in order to secure a placement, my heart sank.

But ok, this is how it is. But here’s another difference. Because we will be volunteers, because we are trainees, because they have no budget for us… there is no urgency to respond to our contact. It’s worse than applying for a paid role. As an example, one agency I approached, I emailed to ask if they had placements available. I got no response. I called them, and was told they had a form on their website I should fill out. A form?? It was a full lenth application form with.. yes you guessed it: essay style questions. And this was even before they’d confirmed if they had placements available. But, accustomed to the treatment that trainess receive from placement providers, I dutifully filled it in and hit submit. Never even heard back. After an email, a phone call and a web form submission: not a dicky bird.

But this is how it is. At least, I thought, when I get a placement finally, they will cover travel expenses (for it seemed I would need to travel: my city contains serveral large counselling courses, which eat up all the available placements very quickly). And then I read the article in the February 2025 edition of “Therapy Today”, the BACP monthly journal: “just 11.5% received travel expenses”. Well, now I felt more motivated than ever to get a placement close to home.

Let’s just reiterate: I’m in the classroom a day a week. On placement a day a week. That leaves me with three days a week to earn money.

I have to pay for the course. I don’t get paid for the placement (in which, often the counselling agency IS earning from my client work). And now you’re telling me, more than likely, I won’t get travel expenses. So if I have to travel an hour or more from home, it’s going to be a drain not only on my energy but on my (limited) income? Thank goodness I have a decent credit rating and can therefore get myself in debt for a few years in order to complete this training!

But isn’t this disgusting? At a time that looking after our mental health is more in the public eye than ever, we are treating those that are passionate about mental health to cover every aspect of the costs themselves, where traiee medical doctors only pay their tuition fees; where trainee clinical pycholgists even get paid to do their training, and where trainee CBT practitioners are paid by their workplace to train. There’s this bit in the middle, the ones that don’t prescribe, don’t tell people what to do, and are clearly still valued within the NHS because proper counsellors do exist there – we pay for everything.

What’s the point of this rant? I suppose, to express my absolute disgust, that whilst I’d accepted that counsellors are poor cousins of CBT practitioners, doctors and clinspy students (at least in the eyes of the NHS), it’s a massive disspointment for me to discover that in the eyes of counselling agencies, we don’t even deserve our travel expenses. What a fucked-up system.

Written by someone who has volunteered in the past, and also been a trainer and mentor of volunteers in paid roles. Has the UK really got to the stage where not paying volunteer expenses is seen as ok because “they need the placement more than we need them?”