Do you have a passion for helping people, do you feel inspired to make a positive change in people's lives, and to meet society's ever-growing need for help in times of mental health difficulties, bereavement, or any number of life's troubles? Then our undergraduate Counselling course is for you.

Our course integrates current therapeutic approaches in an innovative way to prepare you to become a skilled, competent and reflective practitioner. It offers you a rare opportunity to gain both a BACP-accredited academic degree and a professional qualification, and through 108 hours of placements, you'll be well on your way to becoming an accredited practitioner.

We’ll give you in-depth knowledge of the four major psychotherapeutic approaches:

• Person-centred
• Cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT)
• Psychodynamic
• Existential

You will develop your understanding of the key feature of counselling – the therapeutic relationship between counsellor and client. In order to achieve this, you’ll undergo personal therapy yourself, starting in year one. You’ll also practise what you’ve learned in lectures through video-recorded counselling sessions in the UEL labs. We’ll enhance your employment prospects by offering you work placements and a number of volunteering and community action projects.

Study our course and you can find yourself profoundly changing people's lives in a career that will give you incredible satisfaction and reward.

We’ve made theory, practice, research and personal development the four pillars on which we’ve built our course.

In year one, you’ll study the foundations of the therapeutic process and practise basic counselling skills. You’ll have the chance to apply your knowledge through supervised counselling work placements during your second and third years. Additionally, in your third year you’ll carry out and write up a research project.

There are many ways of providing counselling, involving more than 400 different therapeutic modalities. The characteristic feature of this course is the highly contemporary way in which it integrates the main therapeutic approaches.

You’ll cover the main and well-established modalities of person-centred counselling, psychodynamic counselling, cognitive behavioural therapy and existential counselling.

By the time you graduate, you’ll have amassed at least 100 hours of client work. You’ll be well on your way to the 450 hours you need for full British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy (BACP) accreditation.

You'll be taught by a range of staff, all of whom are qualified counsellors, therapists, or psychologists, which ensures practice-focused teaching and research that is relevant to your professional development and future career. You will be taught through lectures, seminars, skills practice sessions (which start from your first week on the course), and, in your final year, group-based clinical supervision with a course tutor.  

When not attending timetabled lectures you will be expected to continue learning independently through self-study. This will typically involve reading journal articles and books, preparing for seminars, undertaking preparing coursework assignments, and arranging independent skills practice sessions with your peers. In your final year, much of your independent study will be focused on your dissertation research project. Your independent learning is supported by a range of excellent facilities including online resources, the library and Moodle.

Students are supported with any academic or subject related queries by an Academic Advisor, module leaders, former and current UEL students.

If you need a bit of extra help with certain skills such as academic writing, maths or IT, our Skillzone and English for Academic Purposes we offer workshops, drop-in sessions and one-to-one appointments to help our students achieve their potential. You can receive advice and guidance on all aspects of the IT systems provided by the university from our IT Service Desks located on all three campuses.
Our Student Support hubs in Docklands and Stratford feature centralised helpdesks to cater for your every need. UEL provides also support and advice for disabled students and those with specific learning difficulties (SPDs).

Each year you will spend around 300 hours of timetabled learning and teaching activities. These may be lectures, workshops, seminars and individual and group tutorials. Contact hours may vary depending on each module.

The approximate percentages for this course are:
Year 1: scheduled teaching – 300 hours; guided independent study – 900 hours.
Year 2: scheduled teaching – 300 hours; guided independent study – 900 hours.
Year 3: scheduled teaching – 300 hours; guided independent study – 900 hours.

Your individualised timetable is normally available to students within 48 hours of enrolment. Whilst we make every effort to ensure timetables are as student-friendly as possible, scheduled teaching can take place on any day of the week between 9.00am and 6.00pm. For undergraduate students Wednesday afternoons are normally reserved for sports and cultural activities, but there may be occasions when this is not possible.

To give you an indication of class sizes, this course normally attracts 40-50 students a year. Lecture sizes are normally 30-40 students.
You will also engage in skills practice and supervision sessions in groups of around four to six peers, plus a staff observer.