More professionals sought to take a training and work in couples therapy
Professionals embrace a second career in couple counselling
Tavistock Relationships is seeing an increase in students turning their backs on their first careers and retraining as couple counsellors. Many are leaving careers in the media, business and law to retrain as counsellors. Factors such as starting a family and redundancy are often also part of the picture, with counselling offering a good, reliable income and flexible hours that fit around family life.
Tavistock Relationships is also seeing an increase in people travelling to its London training centre and clinic from different areas of the country, facilitated by a first-year programme that takes place over two evenings as well as over a single afternoon and evening.
Tavistock Relationships doesn’t expect students to have worked in a related field prior to training, and offers an introductory course to facilitate entry from a wide variety of backgrounds. Its psychodynamic training offers the opportunity to study as a counsellor alongside an existing job, and to make the full transition into counselling at a later date. It runs the only training that qualifies students to work both with individuals and with couples, and clinical hours that are carried out within the clinic’s busy service.
Julie Humphries, Director of Training at Tavistock Relationships, says:
“We are seeing people come to us to retrain as therapists from many different professions, including media, pr and journalism, human resources, healthcare, social work, the law and teaching, as well as parents getting back into work after having a family.
“Working as a therapist is an attractive option, as it allows you to help other people with their relationships, which is hugely rewarding. The work is varied and interesting, and can carry on in private practice well past the normal retirement age.”
Heidi Renton, who left a career in education to retrain as a couple therapist with Tavistock Relationships several years ago, explains her thinking:
“A restructure at my work place made me wish I had more control over my role and over my work-life balance. Fast approaching my 50s, I realised I was frequently exhausted, and keen to find a different way of working. I resolved to reshape my working life into an interesting career which I could control, where I could work as little or as much as I wanted to, right up to – and even beyond – retirement age; a career in which my age and life experience would actually count in my favour, rather than against me.”
There is more information about training as a couple therapist available at www.tavistockrelationships.ac.uk and at www.bacp.co.uk.
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About Tavistock Relationships
Tavistock Relationships is an internationally renowned charity which offers training programmes in Counselling, Psychotherapy and Psychosexual Therapy ranging from introductory and specialist programmes to masters and doctorate level. All courses are taught at the organisation’s two London centres and are accredited by the British Association of Counselling, the British Psychoanalytic Council and the College of Sexual and Relationship therapists.
More case studies of professionals who have retrained as couple counsellors can be found here.
