If you’re thinking of becoming a CBT therapist, but currently don’t have any professional experience, it can be overwhelming knowing where to start.
Whether you’re looking for a job that makes a real difference, have maybe seen firsthand the benefits therapy can deliver, or are simply looking for a career change, training and practicing as a CBT / REBT therapist is a rewarding way to go. But choosing that first step can be difficult.
Luckily, the College of Cognitive Behavioural Therapies (CCBT) can help. CCBT regularly runs their Basic Counselling Skills and Ethics course, which takes place over two weekends.
Its completion prepares you to apply for the Diploma in CBT / REBT (Cognitive Behaviour Therapy and Rational Emotive Behaviour Therapy), and then on all the way through to full accreditation. Learn more about the pathway to becoming a practicing REBT therapist here.
If you’re completely new to therapy and counselling, you may well have no idea of what’s involved, and what skills you need to deploy to effectively listen, build relationships and ultimately help your clients. Is it really sitting in a leather armchair asking someone ‘how does that makes you feel’? (It is very much not asking that question, as attendees soon learn!)
The Counselling Skills and Ethics course is ideal for students with no psychology or clinical skills at all but is also suited to those who have had training in the past and want a refresher, or if you have experience in tangential mental health fields but want to make the move to becoming a therapist yourself.
What the Counselling Skills and Ethics course covers
Over the two weekends, students are shown the basics of counselling. You will not go into great detail about the REBT model (that comes later on the Diploma course), but you will be introduced to the concept of emotional responsibility (and therefore to ask ‘how do you feel about that’ instead!), the basic structure of a counselling session, the three-stage counselling model, and perhaps most importantly for complete beginners, the art and science of active listening.
For those new to counselling skills, learning how to listen, reflect and summarise when working with a client, and the subtle ways you can encourage interaction and strengthen the all-important therapeutic alliance can be a revelation. From body language to the use of silences, open questions to paraphrasing what’s just been said, these people-focused skills are practiced in several role-plays over the two weekends.
These active listening skills are also something you can immediately take away and start using in your everyday life, whether managing conversations at work more effectively or being a better listener and communicator for you family and loved ones.
As well as the above skills around structuring and managing sessions and working with clients, the course also covers many of the ethical questions you may face when dealing with people’s most personal issues.
These range from the key concept of confidentiality and what that means in practice to discussions around more complex ethical dilemmas and how you, as a counsellor, should respond.
Skills for a career
Upon completion, students are awarded a certificate and are then in possession of the basic skills you need to progress to the Diploma. But more importantly, you’ll have confidence in your own abilities to interact and work with others effectively and compassionately.
These ‘basic’ skills, far from being something you move on from and forget, become the foundational techniques of all future therapeutic work. They allow you to build truly engaging and transformational working alliances with you clients.
If you’d like to find out more about the Counselling Skills & Ethics course with CCBT, you can email the team at admin@cbttherapies.org.uk or check the next course here.
Enter your details to download our prospectus and application form