Anyone a trained counsellor?

[tobee]

Thinking of training to be a counsellor. Would like to hear from anyone who is one, and their experiences of training, finding work and working as one.

I'm over 50 if that makes any difference.

Tia

I’m a psychotherapist. It’s easier to train as a counsellor but there are some people on my course who are over 50 who have done it.

Highly recommend having your own therapy before beginning!!

I trained as a therapist. It’s one of those jobs that you can do when you are 90 - because people think you are wise...

I'm thinking of seeking out similar training. Not that I necessarily want to work entirely as a therapist, but because I often find myself in work situations where I would be more effective if I had that training.

DH has done this. Started training in his mid 40's.
It is expensive and a big investment in time to train.
You also need to have your own therapy, so that would be a good place to start if you don't do that already.

DH trained for 3 years, alongside working in a mainly unrelated perm job part time to fund it. He also had to build up a lot of hours volunteering as a counsellor in order to pass his course (and to build up experience). He has now set up in private practice and is just getting BACP accredited.
He wants to work for himself for now, but also reckons a lot of permanent jobs have quite high requirements in terms of how much experience you have.
Age is definitely not an issue, and would count in your favour in some ways as @KittenKong says.

Ooh lots of replies already!

I’ve had some therapy before but maybe not recently enough?

I think I’m worried I’d be too emotionally involved. Or not involved enough maybe?

There are so many areas as well. I’ve had personal experience of panic attacks anxiety and still birth where I had counselling both times which I found mostly very helpful. I also love the way I was given some tools to help myself and would like to learn more and how to pass that on.

Funnily enough I am also over 50 and have been thinking of this myself. Interested to know other people's experiences too.

@Lily019 👍

I did an introduction to counselling course. It was about £200 and one night a week for 10 weeks. I absolutely loved it!

It was worth the investment and I'm looking to carry on. I'm also middle aged, and totally unfulfilled in my current job

I've done level 2, level 3, and after my degree, I'm now I'm doing my masters to qualify. I love it but it is bloody expensive.

Do a level 2 course at your nearest adult education centre/college. It will give you a good idea of whether you actually want to pursue it. The level 2 certificate is a great qualification in itself and helps you to learn to communicate and develop your listening skills.

It can be expensive, course costs, book costs, supervision costs, personal counselling may be required as well, some courses have high drop out rates, not saying that to put you off but worth doing your homework on what it involves. I think to be BACP or NCS accredited you have to have 100 placement hours so you have to fit that in along with the academic side of things. Oh and you don’t have to do a BACP course to become BACP accredited.

Thanks for all these responses; food for thought!