Developing Empathic Listening Skills in a Helping Relationship enhances your use of basic counselling skills and empathically-orientated active listening. The module guides you in the development of a non-expert helping relationship. This will be achieved through practice, video recording, feedback and personal reflection. Experienced tutors will facilitate your learning, demonstrating counselling skills and providing immediate feedback to increase your range of empathic responses. You will have an opportunity to demonstrate your empathic listening skills in the video assessment that accompanies this module.

Humanistic Counselling and Psychotherapy introduces you to the underpinning philosophy of humanistic counselling and psychotherapy, beginning with the foundational work of Maslow and Rogers. The module then explores later developments including person-centred experiential counselling, Gestalt therapy and transactional analysis. In addition to these topics, you will discuss theories of human development and psychopathology and briefly reflect on the political and social context in which the humanistic approach emerged and developed.

Introduction to Empathic and Emotional Responsiveness in a Helping Relationship equips you with basic counselling skills and provides you a grounding in empathically-orientated active listening. The focus of the module is in the development of a collaborative helping relationship. This is achieved by providing introductory counselling skills training, drawn from a theoretical framework of person-centred, experiential counselling. The module will explore the characteristics and attitudinal qualities of an effective therapeutic relationship (empathy, unconditional positive regard and congruence) and support you in developing your self-awareness.

Introduction to Professional and Academic Skills enables you to acquire key academic and professional skills on your journey to becoming an independent learner. Your academic skills will be enhanced to include note-taking, presentation skills, IT skills, the reading of academic articles and the development of a personal portfolio. You will also explore effective and ineffective communication strategies, self-awareness, resilience and transferable life skills such as time management, assertiveness, negotiation, active listening and problem solving.

Introduction to Research Skills provides an overview of research methods. The module equips you with a broad knowledge and understanding of the function and application of research relevant to those working in applied health and social care, including the effectiveness of different models, client issues and groupwork. You will be introduced to both the theoretical and practical aspects of research skills including research terminology, numeric and non-numeric data handling, statistical analysis and interpretation of qualitative and quantitative data.

The Political, Social and Ethical Context of Counselling provides you with a fundamental understanding of politics, ethical practice and the concept of power set within the social context of UK society. This module focuses on the potential of counselling and psychotherapy as a means of achieving political and social change. You will be encouraged to consider how personal ethics are developed and how social policy, social norms and the law can impact on ethical decision-making, especially if they conflict with professional ethics. A fundamental concept that will be discussed is how power manifests within the therapeutic relationship, how power impacts the lives of people who are socially marginalised, as well as how stereotypical views and assumptions can influence the practitioner.

Developing Counselling Skills equips you with the appropriate levels of competency required for skilled helping and the development of a therapeutic relationship. This will be achieved by training you in process-sensitive and emotionally focused counselling skills, incorporating demonstrations, small group practice sessions and video recordings. The module will be underpinned by an introduction to experiential process work as it introduces contemporary emotion theory and its evidence-based relevance within therapy.

Models of Counselling and Psychotherapy begins with an historical overview of counselling and psychotherapy, enabling you to locate theorists and concepts within a historical context. You will then examine the work of Freud, exploring contemporary applications of his psychodynamic approach and critically reflecting on the assessments of leading Freud academics such as Peter Gay and Frederick Crews. The dominant psychotherapeutic model of the moment, cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT), will be introduced. The evidence base supporting CBT will be examined and contemporary applications will be identified and assessed. You will also consider the political and social context in which CBT is practiced, while also exploring the existential approach to psychotherapy, examining the model’s roots in philosophy and literature and contrasting American and European perspectives.

Personal Development focuses upon the developing independent reflective practitioner, enabling you to identify and work with differences between the clinical practice of your peers to enhance the client experience and relationship. The module provides you with the opportunity to explore your thoughts and feelings about your own and other group members’ life experiences. This will be achieved in a personal development group and through the use of expressive art materials such as paintings, modelling and collage work. The aim is to identify and process memories and experiences that impact on your personal and helping relationships.

Social Justice and Community Action explores the concept of social justice within UK society in the context of a range of problems such as poverty, homelessness, unemployment and health and wellbeing concerns.  While considering the concept of ‘community’, you will explore how these inequalities and injustices occur from a social, political, cultural and spiritual perspective. You will then be able to identify how the ‘community’ in which we live can be both the problem and also the solution, and how a community can mobilise for collective action to bring about social change. The module provides the opportunity to practice some of the skills necessary for working with community groups to facilitate change within the community.

Understanding Research familiarises you with the nature and variety of research methods and data collection techniques, together with the need for an evidence-base to guide the decision-making process. You will evaluate qualitative and quantitative methods, examining the positive and negative aspects of both approaches in a comparative analysis. A key aspect of this module is the literature review. You will be shown how to develop a literature search strategy, learn how to find relevant literature using electronic databases and understand how to appraise the literature you find to identify key themes. Ethical considerations in relation to the development and undertaking of research will also be considered.

Critical Approaches to Mental Health and Wellbeing provides an opportunity to develop and apply analytical thinking to key debates in mental health practice. It will enable you to challenge assumptions and evaluate arguments. You will discover how attitudes and responses to mental health and illness reflect historical periods and social anxieties. You will also have the opportunity to evaluate definitions of mental illness, critically examining the claims of Thomas Szasz that mental illness does not exist, and discuss the role of values in mental health. The pragmatic approach that psychiatry takes to the categorisation of mental health disorders will be considered, from phenomenology, which offers the potential for a rich description of conditions such as schizophrenia and depression, to existentialism, which offers interesting ways in which to perceive mental illness. One particular area of investigation will be interrogating the notion of emotional distress as a boundary situation which can lead to emotional growth and a more authentic way of being.

Group Processes and Group Dynamics is an experiential module that takes place within a therapeutic group. Making use of research and group work theory, you will develop a critical appreciation of your current and ongoing group experience, including your own levels and modes of participation. The focus of the module then shifts to group leadership, encouraging you to evaluate different group leadership styles and critically examine the theory and practice of group facilitation. You will develop your group leadership skills in preparation for the module’s final assessment, which requires you to establish and critically reflect upon the facilitation of a community-based support group.

International Perspectives on Mental Health and Wellbeing examines the social, political and global context in which counselling and psychotherapy takes place. The module also enables you to critically apply ideas of social justice and community action locally, nationally and globally. This will be achieved by critically examining the concept of human rights as a vehicle for international social justice, before applying a human rights framework to key global issues including inequality, globalisation and climate change. You will explore how these issues impact on mental health across the globe and evaluate the response of counselling and psychotherapy to increasing levels of psychological and emotional distress.

Placement Support and Group Supervision provides you with a critical perspective on a range of practice and client issues such as record keeping, safeguarding, psychopharmacology and emotional distress. Providing you with experience of working in multi-agency and multi-disciplinary teams, the module explores issues such as compassion fatigue. The aim is to ensure that you are aware of the emotional demands that you may face in the helping professions and the importance of self-care and personal resilience. Peer and tutor-led group supervision will be used as a means of building resilience, enhancing practice and increasing accountability. You will also create a career plan and develop interview skills.

Dissertation enables you to focus on an area of vocational interest, or concern, which is identified by yourself and agreed with your supervisor. You will engage in a structured review of the literature related to the specific area of study, apply critical analysis to the literature and make recommendations that could improve service provision.

Primary Research Dissertation focuses on the identification of an area of vocational interest or concern to be identified by yourself and agreed with your supervisor. You will engage in a structured review of existing literature and design and carry out a research project related to your specific area of study. You will apply critical analysis to the established literature as well as the findings from your proposed research and make recommendations that could improve service provision.

Example offers updated to include the Education and Childcare T Level with an overall grade of Merit.