MSc Psych Conversion or Counselling??? Help!

[CrayCrayMum]

Hoping for some advice from people who have been through an MSc Psych Conversion or counselling or who work in mental health services ....

I have been at home for the last 15 years and have always wanted to study further. Cut to, the opportunity is here as children are starting to leave. I was accepted to do an Msc Psych conversion at the Open University. As part of prep for it, I registered for an online intro into counselling course, which I am really enjoying. My dilemma is this:

What can I realistically do with the qualifications? Which gives me more options?

Do the MSc which will be super interesting, but as a 48 year old, can I realistically get an AP position and a pathway to a PhD? Will I be able to get any jobs in schools or mental health with it?

Or take the counselling path, also super interesting. Does that potentially give me a chance to work in schools or as an independent counsellor?

Appreciate any thoughts!

I started my PhD in Psychology at 53, and now work in academia as a researcher.

training in counselling is also a great pathway to a good career. You can work in almost any setting or for yourself. Also you don’t need a masters for it.

being older has a lot of advantages in both pathways

Ultimately what sort of job do you want?
there are lots of other jobs involving working with children and mental health if that’s what you’re interested in but you would not go down the research assistant phd route for that, or do you mean doctorate?

Tryingtobesogood, do you have other psych experience? I have been doing nothing (except walking the dog, cleaning the house and being the house manager) for the last 15 years. I helped out with some volunteering and community stuff. Just wondering if I would be a dud of a candidate?

thanks for your reply. I am spinning! I think I would like to do some sort of community work / something in a school / hospital. I have had a lot of deep personal trauma that I am finally coming out of. Much of it being wrenched open (in a positive way) with by looking into the courses.

I did have other experience but the MSc would be a good starting point for you. You would not be a dud candidate.

the good thing about the OU is you could take a module, see if you like it and if not go and do counselling instead.

My friend has started a counselling course at college and is doing really well. Moving onto a level 6 course. She was a cleaner before. She will soon be running her own private practice.

Ive been a research assistant and AP after my psych degree but ultimately wanted to do the daily frontline work with children which I’ve don’t through specialist school provision as a teacher. I’ve worked in multidisciplinary teams with other practitioners in mental health units and these included clinical psych, psychiatrists, psychotherapy, art therapy etc. Day to day we were with mental health nurses, teachers, support workers and teaching assistants. Might be easier to do mental health nursing but if you love academia you need to go back to uni for a long time!

What is the counselling qualification?

Counsellor is not a protected title in the UK, you don’t need any qualifications to set up as a counsellor. There are a lot of level 3 (A level equivalent) courses in counselling and it is a very competitive and popular field.

Psychology is also very competitive! I would think that a recent MSc in Psychology would open more doors in unrelated fields than a qualification in counselling (especially if it is not an MSc) if you can’t find a career path in Psychology or Counselling IYSWIM? You could always get a level 3 qualification in counselling after the Psychology degree, if you feel that you made the wrong choice. Having both qualifications would give you an advantage. It would take longer and cost more to switch from counselling to psychology.

I work in Health Science Higher Education. To be honest, the number of candidates who decide they want to undertake Counselling or Psychology qualifications, who have trauma they're working through themselves, is high. It doesn't work out for a lot of them. Don't get me wrong, lots of support is on offer, but, I would say, deal with getting mentally healthy yourself first. You wouldn't then be in a situation where you're having others trauma dump, and how this may affect you. It has the potential to make you quite unwell - and lead to you not qualifying.
It will also be quite confronting in the application period, and unless you're feeling mentally healthy, it can go against you, and have your application knocked back. Just from my experience; I'm not a mental health professional, but I've been working in this area for 20 years, and I've seen it very often.
I wish you all the best.

Counselling is a really lovely type of therapy and I also really enjoyed it when I studied it. I can see why you like that. Sadly I stepped away for an easier career route into being a CBT therapist working with mental health difficulties in a busy NHS service I now realise I would have much preferred the counselling route, job wise. However the pay for counselling is lower. So I wouldn't have loved that. Counsellors are a band 5 in the NHS and as far as I know that’s where they stop.
Whereas CBT therapists, mental health nurses and psychologists earn more. So it depends on your priority and how much you want/need to earn.

I wouldn't let your age stop you at all. I think people really appreciate the experience and maturity of older candidates, especially as therapists of any sort.

However the route to becoming a psychologist is long, extremely competitive and not funded!
Could you instead look to become a PWP and then if you enjoy that progress your career by becoming a high intensity CBT therapist? You end up earning the same as a psychologist but will be funded throughout, it’s a lot quicker, and a lot easier (although still competitive!)

As an aside to all of that, if you do work with the mental health difficulties of others, please consider how triggering that might be for your own past experiences. You hear such sad and awful stories about people’s lives and sometimes it’s something that hits a nerve for you, so it’s just considering how you would feel about that and if it would impact on your ability to continue working with someone/your own mental health

I did a conversion in order to get onto a doctorate. There were lots of people on my course who had different pathways though. AP positions and doctorates are really competitive- it’s definitely worth going for but have a fulfilling plan B too because it’s a long process.

I looked into both too and the reality is not as flourish as it looks.

Any jobs at that level will expect quite a level of direct experience. You can't be a psychologist without a phD and that route is extremely competitive. There are jobs you can do with a Masters but again, it isn't much worth without the experience.

Counselling at Masters level require some experience too. Less competitive, but that means more competition for jobs.

My advice would be to look at volunteering to start with. Even that is not always easy, but once you're in, the rest will follow much more easily.