To wonder how people afford counselling privately?

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Counselling where I live starts at £40 per hour 50 minutes with some charging £50 or £60. Concessions for unwaged are minimum £35 per hour.

The average salary where I live is £19k.

How do people afford it??

I am unsure how much benefit people get if they are not working but I'm pretty sure they are unlikely to have £35 left over a month let alone each week or fortnight.

I'm also thinking that most people who would require counselling have had life issues that has probably impacted their earning potential.

But then if the counsellors get very few clients at these rates, it would make sense that they would charge less so I am honestly confused.

Any ideas anyone??

I think many do. As anyone can set themselves up as a therapist - I could tomorrow - there is no legal requirement to have therapy yourself although some of the better professional bodies require it.

The idea is that you've already sorted your own issues out so that you don't end up projecting them onto the client/not being able to distinguish between your stuff and theirs.
It's recommended by the BACP that you have your own therapy but they can't really make it a course requirement as people might have had counselling in the past.

It was a requirement of the course when I started training. I hope it still is for any course that leads to accreditation. I think it's very important that counsellors have a good understanding of their own shit before they try to help someone else with theirs.

It really is shockingly expensive when you add it all up though - tuition fees + working for free to gain necessary hours + your own counselling / therapy + supervision. I do think the NHS should cover some of this if the govt. are pushing talking therapies. They cover the cost of nurse training and several other disciplines and make a big contribution to medical training. I know it's a pipe dream in the current climate but it would lead to more diversity within the profession, which would in turn lead to more people being able to find a counsellor who has a real understanding of their life circumstances and the pressures they're facing.

x-post - you either had to have had counselling / therapy or have it during training on my course but that was back in the 90's things might have changed a lot. They were quite specific on the type of therapy too - the course I was doing was person-centred and they wouldn't accept the Freudian based therapy I had managed to get on the NHS.

while training personal therapy is a requirement for courses that are accredited by the BACP and UKCP

you simply can not work as a therapist if you have not had therapy, it is not only about dealing with your issues but recognising what is your stuff and what is your clients

after years of work things can unravel therapist are not fixed people, though should have dealt or be able to handle with the most pressing issues that they are aware of and hopefully they have enough self awareness in being able to deal with their issues while it not impacting on their client

There are some psychotherapy trainings that are nhs funded and they also then qualify people to work in the nhs. They are extremely rigorous, take many years and require therapists to have their own analysis throughout their training. There are not enough of these however and like many things are more represented in London, but not exclusively so. Unfortunately the ukcp and bacp accredit many strange trainings as well as very good ones and the length and rigour of training is very varied. It is worth looking at the nhs recognised ones.

PlentyOfPubeGardens

things have not changed as much as they should have, the counselling profession is not a great representation of our society, still very much dominated by white middle class woman

its a real shame, of course it should not really matter what ethnic background or class someone is from but when it is so dominated by one group can be a problem for potential clients

I have private therapy that is paid for by an organisation relating to a specific area of childhood abuse. It also provides therapy to family members. I get around two years of therapy. I found it by trawling the internet one desperate weekend.

I'm really grateful but would really prefer not to need it. It's worth doing some research, you never know what you might find.

Also, years ago i had therapy that was means tested, you paid what you could afford.

its a real shame, of course it should not really matter what ethnic background or class someone is from but when it is so dominated by one group can be a problem for potential clients

I hear you Freudian. In my experiences of therapy this has been an issue.

I have to be in private therapy throughout my course.

They were quite specific on the type of therapy too - the course I was doing was person-centred and they wouldn't accept the Freudian based therapy I had managed to get on the NHS

That's because you need to experience the kind of therapy you are training in so youve been on both ends of it.

Someone asked if having your own therapy inspired the career choice. It did for me.

I find the rates in the UK acceptable - although, whether or not people can afford it is a different issue!

I was living abroad a few years ago and I needed rape counselling. It had happened years before, but the issue had started bothering me. I looked around and the cheapest I could find was $100 (US but not in the US. This was 2005 and was about £80 at the time. I couldn't afford even one session at the time and ended up finding something in my local church (which I never visited and I wasn't/am not religious - or even Christian!).

Anyway, the reason for the pricing was so high that most people had private insurance that paid for it. It was normal, totally normal there.

If the Tories get their way, this would be similar in the UK and the end result would be a far worse situation that we have now.

I think it should all be funded and I also think that in cases where there are convictions for rape, domestic violence, child abuse (any type), muggings a or anything else that is known to cause people to need counselling in both the short and long terms, the sentence should include a fine that gets paid into a pot that helps (only helps) fund counselling on the NHS.