Retraining as a therapist/counsellor - any advice?

[Studentforlife]

Any advice on retraining to become a therapist/counsellor?

Cost, where you trained, time took to do it, worth switching so late in life?

At 51 is it worth it? I have life experience behind me, a lot of it, and feel that you can probably work as a therapist until you can't speak or hear anymore...into your 70s if you want to. In a flexible working environment that, once you've built up a practice, could even be your own.

Interested on people's thoughts. Positive and negative. Thanks.

Counselling courses vary dramatically by the way - my friend is just completing one which is three years long and extremely rigorous. Others are more basic.

I considered retraining as a counsellor but after a small amount of research felt making a living in this field would be difficult.
I volunteered for mental health charities, then became a mental health support worker. I did not have any experience apart from volunteering. The work is hard, unsociable hours, low pay.
I then trained and qualified as a children's social worker aged 56. Social work is not for everyone but it has worked well for me. Pay is more than double what support workers get and there is no shortage of jobs.

@sumac take my hat off to you!

@Nightynightnight Thank you! Wish I'd done it earlier.
OP mentioned training in social work but didn't say if she became social worker or not.

@sumac unfortunately I didn’t complete it, in hindsight very stupid as it was when the masters conversion was subsided. I was in an abusive relationship and he encouraged me to give it up. I was 14 months in. To be fair it was what I wanted at the time as it felt SW was in need of a big overhaul particularly child protection which is where I worked. I didn’t feel I had the energy at my age to change the system and felt the system would not support me. Part of me still feels this as I have friends from that time who have moved on and up in it and it is definitely for the very strong and dedicated. Well done for what you have done, I’m impressed and in awe of anyone who is a social worker. Thank you for all that you do.

@JennieTheZebra what type of work is involved in day to day MH support worker? Is the route in via nursing?

Personally I would say don't, unless you want to invest ££££ just for the enjoyment of doing the training. I trained years ago and was good at it, but it became obvious there wasn't a way to make money out of it. It's like a pyramid scheme. Had to work for free and tout for business to try to get placement hours amongst loads of competition. You could make money if you felt confident to go work privately but I couldn't see myself doing that, where basically anyone with any set of issues could show up and that wouldn't be fair as I wasn't equipped.

You could start working as a life coach tomorrow with zero quals or training. Or you could dream up some ‘gifts’ and start working as a healer with clients all over the world via Zoom.

MSc Intergrative psychotherapy. If you want to train you need a course which is accredited to UKCP.

Ok. This is going to sound a bit brutal but if I can't say it on an anonymous forum then where can i say it.

Twice I've sourced therapy for myself and once for my daughter. I would never consider for a second using someone who had re-trained in their forties or fifties. Too many middle class middle aged women have a mid-life crisis, or divorce and have to support themselves, and decide to become counsellors because their friends have told them they're "good listeners" and it's a respectable non physically demanding job that they can do within hours that suit themselves.

The only therapist I would ever use would be one who went to university to study the subject at 18 and has worked in that field ever since.

Sorry to be blunt but thats just the way I see it. I know others will disagree with me.

I would never want anyone who went to university to study counselling. There are far, far too many counsellors in their 20s/30s having done some type of CBT training.

You can’t study therapy at 18 though.

Of course you can. Despite what some negative posters are saying therapists are always in demand...especially good ones!
Bacp routes are fairly long but I'm sure worth it if that's what you want to do!

In my opinion there are some flipping brilliant modalities, eg Internal Family Systems, that are absolutely amazing. Much quicker/ cheaper to learn and highly effective and some would say.... wipe the floor with conventional counselling.

Ha @Chowtime brutal is fine, and I know what you mean. I have had quite a lot of therapy and I agree. It's partly why I think I would be good at it and why I am considering it. What I don't agree with is that life experience doesn't count. You haven't said that in so many words, but an 18 year old who has learnt to listen is not going to be any good at empathetic listening. Believe me, I've been there in therapy rooms with 30 year olds showing me positive posts on their Insta accounts....

An 18 year old still hasn't fully developed a brain - and the bit that's not quite cooked yet is the bit that helps us to regulate thoughts, feelings and emotions and consequences. You can have the 18 year old trainee therapist and I'll have the person with a whole brain 😁

I’m a therapist. I’m in my 6th year post qualifying, and it was probably last year that I was able to make this my only source of income. I make an acceptable living by balancing private practice and agency work. I love my job and have no regrets. I feel I have found my niche. I’m not loaded by any means but I tick over. If I were doing it all again? I’d really research the training course and the provider - they vary enormously. It’s helpful to do training accredited by the BACP or the UKCP. The hidden costs are pretty eye watering - supervision, personal therapy, insurance and professional membership and so on. Consider what is likely to be needed in your area ie are you in an area where lots of people might be looking for shorter term work, or where people can afford longer term? Do you want to work for yourself or an agency? Is it therapy or bust? Would you do a Psychological Wellbeing Practitioner (PWP) training? As a starter, consider doing a level 2 or 3 counselling skills certificate; it will stand you in good stead whatever training route you decide on and will give you a fair idea if this work is for you. Therapy is different from MH support work - immensely valuable though the latter is. Therapy is a one on one relationship with a client, often over time and at depth. Whilst MH support work is an excellent experience to support an application for therapy training, it’s a discrete role. Hope this is useful.

Oh and I qualified at 50, still adding to my training now. Got the bug! 😂

@Craftycorvid would you be able to share your training route? Ive seen a lot of online courses but find it hard to believe that is a the right way to go. Surely face-to-face is a prerequisite? Or maybe Im just old school.

I’m mid forties, started an MSc in psychology at 40, graduated at 43 and now I’m halfway through training as a PWP. I was delighted when I got the job. The course is funded, 2 days pw, and we work patient-facing 3 days pw which is gold- I didn’t have any specific clinical experience before (but loads of other professional experience). Working for the NHS makes me feel kosher, and it seems like it will really open doors because no-one stays a PWP for very long before moving on up. It’s not for the faint-hearted though. PM me if you like OP.

Oh, and to echo what PPs said, I’ve also done a BACP counselling skills course, basic stuff, without which I don’t think I would have got the PWP job.

@Studentforlife
MH support workers support people who have serious MH problems to live the best, and most independent life, possible. A MH support worker will help a service user with daily living activities (like washing, eating, cleaning etc), help them to go out and access the community and will also support them by talking to them about their MH and being a regular, but not overly enmeshed, presence. You can get a MH support worker job without any qualifications, as long as you’re kind and empathetic-being there is enough. Tbh you could probably get an inpatient MH ward HCA job without any experience, we’re so short staffed.
I agree that MH support work is different to the therapist role but I would say that MH support workers do have close and in depth relationships with their clients. If you see someone very regularly (several a week) you can’t help build that up.
I think that the role of the therapist is much more structured than either that of the MH support worker or MH nursing. One of the reasons I chose to become a MH nurse is that I wanted the ability to choose from lots of different skill sets to help my service users. Now I largely work with people with personality disorders. To do that I’m CBT and DBT trained (I’m completing a MSc in CBT for PDs) and I know enough about other modalities to make use of them. However, unlike therapists, I’m medication trained and know which medications might help my patients. I also know enough about benefits/social services/the law to be useful there. MH nursing is a very broad school and a wonderful job.
Also, unlike therapy training, MH nursing is funded through student finance even if you already have a degree so you wouldn’t have to pay up front.

@Studentforlife Started by doing a level 1 counselling skills course sponsored via work. Did levels 2-4 at a local college, level 4 diploma gives a counselling qualification but my course wasn’t BACP accredited and had slightly fewer teaching hours than required for me to become BACP registered. Be careful with this! Luckily, as I had a level 3 qualification that was assessed, I could add the teaching hours from that to my level 4 and become a registrant with BACP. A level 4 qualification is considered the academic equivalent of A levels/foundation degree for context. I’ve since done a level 5 top up, plus EMDR training, IAPT training, and I’m now doing a level 7 (Masters equivalent) psychotherapy training which is UKCP accredited. It’s a morass when it comes to levels and equivalents and I wandered into it all very naively. That it’s all fallen into place for me is mostly luck. If you have a degree, think about whether you want to do the 2 or 3 year counselling diploma or whether you want to apply for a 4 year psychotherapy training. Lots of people refine and add to their qualifications over time.

Personally I wouldn’t (sorry)
I did a respected (RG uni) counselling course, a fair few years ago. Only a few of our cohort ended up in gainful employment as counsellors. The market is so saturated.

@Youdoyoudoyou Absolutely agree with you about the brilliance of Internal Family Systems. Unfortunately though the training for this is designed as an add-on to an existing counselling/therapy training. So you can't just do an IFS training and (ethically) set yourself up as a therapist.

@popyourcollar I have met coaches and wellness practitioners trained in it. I believe they are IFS practitioners not therapists :)