What's in the Academic Lectures section?

At a Glance

The Academic Lectures section covers the same content you study on your formal course — theory, skills, and the practical knowledge of how to be an ethical practitioner. Whatever modality you study, whichever awarding body you're with, your core curriculum is here.

Three areas

The Academic Lectures are organised into three connected sections.

Theory

Every modality taught in the United Kingdom is covered:

• Person-Centred — Carl Rogers' core conditions, 19 propositions, 7 stages of process

• CBT and REBT — cognitive distortions, ABC model, behavioural experiments

• Psychodynamic — Freud, defence mechanisms, the unconscious

• Transactional Analysis — ego states, life scripts, games, contracts

• Gestalt — here and now, empty chair, contact and awareness

• Existential — meaning, freedom, isolation, mortality

• Attachment Theory — Bowlby, Ainsworth, attachment styles

• Integrative and pluralistic — working across modalities

— and more besides. Each topic has multiple lectures covering its key concepts.

Skills

The skills you learn during training, explained and demonstrated:

• Empathy, congruence, unconditional positive regard

• Challenge, immediacy, focusing

• Questioning, silence, attending

• Rapport-building, paraphrasing, summarising

Plus lectures on practising skills with peers, and on evaluating your own skills as you grow.

Practice and Evaluation

The "how to actually be a practitioner" knowledge — everything that sits alongside theory and skills:

• Risk assessment and notetaking

• Using supervision effectively

• Building and holding the therapeutic relationship

• UK GDPR and ethics

• Equality and diversity in practice

• Professional documentation and contracts

How members use it

Most members use Academic Lectures in one of two ways. Some use them to recap what they've already covered in class — often the night before an assignment is due. Others use them to prepare for upcoming topics, so they walk into class already informed.

Both are valid. Many members do both.

Want to know more?

You can see everything that's inside — and current membership options — at the Student Library page.

If you have a specific question we haven't answered here, email us at support@counsellingtutor.com — a real person will reply within 24 hours.