Additional Course Requirements

If you undertake one of our counselling or psychotherapy training courses, as well as attending the training you will need to meet the following additional requirements:

Personal Counselling or Psychotherapy

A requirement of all programmes with a clinical component is that students remain in personal therapy throughout their training. The number of hours you need will vary between programmes, so please check with your Head of Programme to confirm the specific expectations.
Counselling students must be in face‑to‑face therapy with a BACP or UKCP‑accredited counsellor or psychotherapist. Psychotherapy students must be in face‑to‑face psychotherapy with a UKCP‑registered psychotherapist.

Please check with your programme team to see whether there are any additional requirements.
For postgraduate study, there are occasional circumstances where a psychotherapist who is not UKCP‑accredited may be considered if they can demonstrate equivalent training and experience. This must be discussed and approved by the Programme Leader of the course you wish to join.

Please note that the cost of personal therapy is not included in course fees and will need to be funded separately by you.

Supervision

Once you start to see clients (usually at the beginning of year 2), you will be required to receive fortnightly supervision as a means of supporting your clinical practice. Some clinical placements offer supervision as part of the service they provide, others don’t. If you attend a placement with in-house supervision, you must still attend at least one supervision session a month with an approved Metanoia supervisor. You will need at least 35 hours of supervision before graduation if you attend a counselling course and 150 if you attend a psychotherapy course. To help you with this, we provide a list of approved supervisors via the course academic coordinator. Please note that the cost for supervision is not included in the course fees and needs to be funded separately by you.

Clinical Practice

From the second year onwards you will be required to start seeing clients (18+). As well as our in-house clinic, where several students undertake their first placement, we have some excellent resources to help you find placements, including dedicated clinical placements and development officers and a placement data base and noticeboard.

Counselling students will be required to gain a minimum of 150 hours before taking their final exams and psychotherapy students 450 (750 for TA students). These hours need to be gained through face-to-face work with adult clients. Your supervisor will be required to regularly sign your clinical practice log to evidence compliance with this requirement.

In-house placements with the Metanoia Counselling and Psychotherapy Service

Mental Health Familiarisation Placement

All psychotherapy students (unless they have substantial previous experience of mental health systems) need to undertake a Mental Health Familiarisation Placement. This placement is usually undertaken sometime during the final two years of your course and usually during the week. The general aim of the Placement is for candidates to gain familiarity with, and first-hand experience of, the thinking and clinical methods used in the psychiatric profession and the main mental health delivery systems in Britain, as well as the Mental Health Act.

Insurance for your Clinical Practice

Please note students are not covered by Metanoia insurance whilst working at an external placement or whilst working privately. Your clinical work is only covered by Metanoia insurance if you are working for Metanoia Counselling and Psychotherapy Service (MCPS). If you are not covered by your placement’s organisational insurance then you will need to take out your own insurance.

BACP/UKCP Fees

It is highly recommended that you become a student member of the BACP or UKCP, depending on the professional body your programme is accredited by, from the beginning of your studies.

GDPR

To ensure that you are working in compliance with the Data Protection Act 2018, you are recommended to register with the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) once you begin to work with clients. You can register with the ICO for an annual fee of £52.