What is the difference between a counselling and a psychotherapy?
Which do I offer?
The terms counselling and psychotherapy are very often used interchangeably, but there are some differences:
- Length of training: Counsellors generally have 3 years training, but it may be a lot less depending on the course. I hear some are completed online in a much shorter time. Psychotherapists generally have another 2 years additional training. This does not mean that they necessarily offer something very different though, depending on the therapist, their approach and the intensity of their training.
- Personal therapy: Psychotherapists are required to undergo a lot of personal therapy whilst training. During counselling training there is a variable amount of personal counselling/therapy required, again depending on the training, sometimes very little or even none.
- Duration: Psychotherapy may be longer term or open ended. Counselling may be short term, but can also be longer term or open ended.
- Focus: Generally speaking counselling focuses on overcoming specific difficulties in the present. Psychotherapy is more fluid and exploratory with the aim of liberating less conscious parts of ourselves that may have been repressed.
- Structure / Direction: How interactive, directive or structured a counsellor or psychotherapist is will depend on their approach and training. Attuned and sensitive listening is a cornerstone of the process either way.
I am a Psychotherapeutic Counsellor, which means that my counselling training was sufficiently in depth and intensive to work at a psychotherapeutic level with early wounds from childhood and the impact of these. This was a 3 year in person training with a requirement of 105 hours of personal therapy. I see clients short term but mostly longer term, as required. My focus is on how to help heal the roots of the problem rather than strategies for managing anxiety or low mood. My aim is to facilitate transformation and release from old patterns, and my experience is that this is very possible.