Counselling (Professional Practice)

Studying the BA (Hons) Counselling degree prepares you to become a skilled, ethical and register-ready practitioner, equipped with the knowledge and practical experience required for a professional career in counselling. Aligned with British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy (BACP) accreditation standards, this course ensures you meet recognised industry expectations while developing essential therapeutic skills.

Across four years, you will study counselling theory in depth, develop the personal awareness and reflexive practice that good counselling work depends on, learn to apply your knowledge ethically and skilfully with real clients under supervision, and complete a substantial extended placement in your final year that gives you the breadth of experience needed to begin your career.

The course takes an integrative pluralistic orientation, which means you will learn to draw responsibly and reflectively on more than one therapeutic tradition rather than committing to a single school of practice. This positions you well for the realities of contemporary counselling work, where practitioners are increasingly expected to respond flexibly to clients who present with diverse needs, backgrounds and preferences. You will also engage in detail with the equality, diversity and inclusion dimensions of practice, with online and phone therapy, and with the wider mental health context in which counselling sits.

By the end of the course, you will have completed a minimum of 100 supervised counselling hours, often exceeding this requirement, and gained the confidence, ethical awareness and professional identity needed to pursue a career in counselling. You will graduate ready to apply to join the BACP register and succeed as a reflective, adaptable and employable counselling practitioner.

Studying BA Hons Counselling at the University of Chester:

• Provides you with a direct route into professional counselling

• Is shaped by real-life employer needs

• Gives you valuable practice training with real people

• Creates a community of learners to share practice with

• Prepares you for professional BACP accreditation

Course Modules

Check out "visit our course page link" underneath the provider information section at the bottom of this page for the most up-to-date information about what you will be studying.

Assessment is designed to evidence both your academic progress and your developing professional competence. Graded modules carry essays, case formulations, recorded skills practice with self-evaluation, oral examinations and the practitioner inquiry project; ungraded modules use competence-based assessment to evaluate your readiness to practise, your personal development and your clinical work. You will receive regular formative feedback, an annual review of your progress, and an external examiner with BACP experience moderates the standard of assessment across the course.