Overview of Our Courses

Counselling Skills

A ten week programme designed to give trainees basic skills that can be used in every day life or as a taster to longer term training at the Institute. This course is accredited by ABC and offers a Level 2 qualification.

Foundation Access

6 months part-time
Designed for those wanting an access course before undertaking a longer programme, and for those who wish to move onto the BSc or Masters programme but who need to enhance their study experience in preparation for this.

BSc (Hons) in Counselling & Psychotherapy (BACP Accredited)

3 years full-time
BSc (Hons) in Counselling and Psychotherapy has been validated recently by Coventry University and accredited by BACP. This course has evolved from our BACP accredited Diploma in Counselling and Psychotherapy. The course is delivered in 8 x 3 day workshops (Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays). 24 Training Days in total. This course adopts a Humanistic and Integrative approach that draws on contemporary theories that implement and promote a therapeutic relationship.

MSc in Gestalt Psychotherapy & Counselling

4 years part-time
Behaviour can be understood as an expression of our attempts to actualise our fullest selves and make contactful relationships. But patterns that develop in response to particular circumstances can become fixed. The therapist works in partnership with the client to release fixed patterns; enliven contact with self, others, the world; enhance doing and being; promote awareness and self-actualisation. A variety of creative approaches used within the therapeutic relationship.

MSc in Integrative Psychotherapy & Counselling

4 years part-time
A developmental-relational approach that uses a synthesis of Humanistic Psychology, Object Relations Theory and Psychoanalytic Self-Psychology.
The result is a unique integration of approaches designed to help with working through childhood issues in order to be fully available for the richness of current relationships, both with clients and in their personal life.

MSc in Person-Centred Psychotherapy & Counselling

4 years part-time
This course follows Carl Rogers' work in identifying the best 'conditions for growth' and learning how to provide these within the therapeutic relationship. This is supported by other ideas and practices from Humanistic psychotherapy that allow the individual to release themselves from restrictive habitual patterns and move into a fuller 'way of being'.
We believe this integrated approach provides a high standard of counselling / psychotherapy training and leaves graduates well-placed to become competent practitioners in the field.

PG Cert/ PG Dip/ MSc in Cognitive-Behavioural Psychotherapy

2-4 years part-time
The central aim of Cognitive Behavioural Psychotherapy is to assist people in gaining a greater understanding of the development and nature of their difficulties and consequently develop / enhance effective coping strategies in order that they can act as their own therapist, that is, manage their problems independently.
This programme aims to provide trainees from a variety of backgrounds with sufficient theoretical and practical exposure to classical and contemporary views of CBP to enable them to become autonomous practitioners. Crucial to sound clinical practice is a training that combines theoretical understanding as a way of conceptualising clinical issues for competent practice.

Diploma in Clinical Supervision

1 year part-time
Training for those wishing to become clinical supervisors: as professionals in counselling/ psychotherapy/the helping professions - in the voluntary, public or private sectors
The programme examines the various different models of supervision, and explores all aspects of the supervisory relationship.

MSc in Clinical Supervision

3 years part-time
three year training for qualified and registered counsellors and psychotherapists. One year of this programme shares a common core programme with the diploma in Clinical supervision. In the third year students work towards the submission of a research dissertation. This course aims to support professionals from a range of backgrounds with a high level of academic input coupled with significant clinical experience to become autonomous supervisors of counsellors and psychotherapists. SPTI are staying abreast of current developments in respect of the regulation of the profession.

 

all our courses...

...are designed to be managed alongside current occupations.
...have a maximum of 26 training days a year.

Are all suitable for those who:

  • Want to train to become professional psychotherapists and counsellors or
  • Want to develop the counselling or psychotherapy component in their current work and/or
  • Want to make a serious commitment to furthering their own self-development

Each of our courses is unique and yet they share at their core similar values and ideas. These are:

  • The relationship between therapist and client (and trainer and trainee) is a core part of therapeutic healing and growth work.
  • The client has an inner sense of what is right for them. Part of the job of the therapist is to help the client to learn to listen to their inner sense
  • People have an innate capacity to grow and to change, to fulfil their potential.
  • People are ultimately responsible for their own lives.
  • People are valued regardless of race, gender, age, disability, religion or sexual orientation.
  • Patterns of thinking, feeling and behaviour are formed early in life and can become fixed in ways that are not always helpful to us, restricting our choice and our freedom. The therapeutic process is about regaining both of these.
  • Awareness - knowing ourselves - is an important aspect of regaining freedom and choice.

Most of our Masters courses are accredited by Coventry University and all our courses, apart from the Foundation Access, Masters/Diploma in Supervision and Masters in Cognitive-Behavioural Psychotherapy, are accredited by the United Kingdom Council for Psychotherapy (UKCP) and/or the British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy (BACP).