We bring together theory, practice and experience.
We bring together theory, practice and experience and all our courses combine theoretical seminars with skills training, experiential training groups and weekend workshops. Professional training also supports supervised work with training clients.
Staff-student contact hours and supervised practice hours are kept high. Training, whether in theory seminars, experiential training groups, or supervision sessions, is done in relatively small groups most often of around 12 students.
Seminars
Seminars introduce students to a range of theories, histories and practices in psychotherapy and counselling. They combine lectures and group discussions and require students to produce essays and give presentations.
Experiential Training Groups
These peer groups are concerned with your own personal development and provide a space for students to explore the impact of the course and their sensitivity and awareness of themselves, others, and their interactions within a group. Skilled facilitators lead each group.
Confidentiality
Although our teaching is predominantly in-person, please be aware that you will need access to a private space to attend any online training sessions and to deliver any online/telephone counselling or psychotherapy. Once you have an Agreement to Practice, you will need to arrange private supervision for any private clients.
Continuous and Open Assessment
We require that our students are proficient in the written, experiential and clinical areas of their training. Our assessment is continuous and open, and includes self-assessment, peer assessment, tutor assessment and assessment by external assessors.
Training Client Experience
Getting experience and building confidence with actual clients is key for students preparing to practice as therapists. We offer our students support in finding placements and training clients (long term client work that is supervised as part of the training). Most training clients come through our affordable therapy service, the MCPCS.
Supervision
The Minster Centre is particularly strong on supervision. Unlike many trainings, where supervision is arranged and paid for separately by the student, in-house supervision is a major component of our main training programmes.
