to be scared by my counselling course

[crossroads3]

Am doing a Counselling Certificate course which if it goes well will lead to a two year BACP registered Diploma course.

3 weeks in I am suddenly wondering what on earth I am doing there and how I could ever have thought I might make a good counsellor .

Why? What is putting you off?

I don't know - the idea that I might ever be qualified to talk to people who are feeling suicidal or who are dealing with very difficult things I have no experience of.

I'm going to bed now, so won't see your reply tonight, but I would just say that there's no point catastrophising. At this level, the course will be useful to you in most jobs, and just generally- don't worry about whether you'd make a good counsellor. Concentrate on learning the theory and techniques that will help you in any interpersonal role, and add to your CV.

You aren't even close to qualifying, so there's no need to worry about how you'd function in the role as a career yet. But a foundation in the subject is very rarely a waste of time.

You're still only starting out! You'll have to do many hours of supervised counselling before you "let loose"

Do you like your tutor? Mine was quite stern, but my classmates made up for it

Are you doing level 2 or 3? I've done them and although I decided not to continue for the time being (felt too young), I thoroughly enjoyed the experience and really learnt how to carry myself and work on my body language.

Good luck!

The thing that put me off counseling training was the fact I was supposed to do counseling myself as part of the process. I had nothing to share, literally, and the tutor wouldn't believe me! I quit. I wasn't going to make stuff up. She just wouldn't believe I was happy.

Do you know about imposter syndrome?

I think questioning your suitability is a good start, actually! You're clearly being made to think about things because of your training, and that's an excellent thing.

As has been stated, before you get to work with actual clients, you will need to undergo counselling yourself - when I did the first certificates several years ago, it was a minimum of 50 hours of counselling, which, at the time, I couldn't do. I did go on to do it later, but never completed my own counselling training as it wasn't something I felt comfortable with - but I found the early training to be really useful and opened up some things that helped me to understand my own issues a lot better.

Stick with it, unless you're really hating it - let yourself question your suitability and tell your tutor(s) how you feel, as that's a really big part of the training, identifying and acknowledging your own feelings, so you can separate them out from clients' "stuff".