Psychological counseling training

Newcomers who want to join the industry can avoid taking the wrong course by choosing the right courses for more than three years, but don’t have the dream of “taking a certificate and earning over 10,000 yuan a month”； Ordinary people who just want to solve emotional and relationship problems on their own can basically reduce their daily internal friction by half as long as they avoid weird courses on mind control.

Last year, my distant cousin wanted to switch to psychological counseling. She spent 30,000 yuan in savings to watch short videos, and almost signed up for a course that said "three months to get an international certificate, and a graduation package to be assigned to the case study." She came to me anxiously to check on her. I dragged her through the course schedules of three institutions, crossed out all the options that did not include "ethics courses" and "crisis intervention", and finally chose a half-year introductory class from a small local institution: the first three months were about the basics of general psychology and developmental psychology, and the second three months were equipped with 20 hours of personal experience (that is, the students themselves would be clients for consultation first), and 10 times of peer supervision. Now she works as a part-time assistant at a psychological service station in the street. The parents of her first parent-child consultation case she received last month sent her a handwritten letter of thanks. Although she only earned 80 yuan from that transaction, she was still far from "making over 10,000 yuan a month," but at least she was on the right track.

The controversy over psychological counseling training in the industry has never stopped. The most noisy one is "whether it is necessary to study long-term systematic courses for more than 2 years first." Most practitioners with a psychoanalytic orientation have a long-term problem: you can't even distinguish basic defense mechanisms such as projection and regression. When you take a case, you just step on the client's wounds, which may cause secondary damage. But many cognitive behavioral (CBT) teachers don’t think so: as long as you understand the bottom line of basic ethics and crisis intervention, short-term specialized skills training can fully support you in doing cases in specific fields, such as emotional counseling for teenagers and anxiety management before exams. Last month I went to an industry salon and met a community social worker. He had only studied CBT for three months and received more than a dozen cases of depressed middle school students. After a follow-up visit, the effective rate of mood improvement was 70%, which is no worse than that of newcomers who have studied for one or two years.

Of course, to be honest, there are really a lot of pitfalls in psychological counseling training now. The most common IQ tax is the "certification and affiliation" gimmick. The country canceled the professional qualification certificate for psychological counselors in 2017. Now all institutions on the market issue training certificates, which do not have the qualifications to practice at all, let alone make money through affiliation. There are also some trainings that take the wrong path of "spiritual practice". During class, they force everyone to do collective trauma exposure, crying and crying, and do not provide follow-up emotional support. Many people are emotionally depressed after the class and cannot recover for several months. This is not called training, it is called mental PUA.

I have been in the industry for almost 7 years, and have spent nearly 200,000 yuan on training. I have encountered a long list of pitfalls: a few years ago, I signed up for a "Home Arrangement Master Class" worth nearly 40,000 yuan. I took my bag and ran away after three days. There were people hugging strangers and calling "dad" and "mom" all over the place, without any professional logic. Looking back now, the most useful thing is not those ridiculously expensive master classes, but the 1,200 yuan ethics class that I signed up for when I first entered the industry, and the weekly peer supervision that I have persisted for five years. These things are not gimmicks, but they can really help you stabilize your confidence when taking on cases.

Not everyone studies psychological counseling training just to get into the industry. I have a friend who is an Internet operator. In order to change her problem of "cold war whenever we have an argument," she signed up for a two-month non-violent communication special course. It cost less than 2,000 yuan. Now she can talk to her husband in half an hour at most. She said it is more effective than the three marriage consultations she had done before. If you just want to deal with your own emotions and relationship problems, there is really no need to bite the bullet and sign up for a long-term system course worth tens of thousands of dollars. It is enough to find a short-term course that matches your specific needs.

In the final analysis, psychological counseling training is essentially just a tool. Whether you use it to chop up your own internal friction, or use it to build a shelter for others, it all depends on your own needs. Don't deify it, thinking that you can become the "emotional god" after learning it, and don't underestimate it. If you really learn it thoroughly, it will be useful even when talking to children or communicating with colleagues. Be careful when choosing, and listen to two trial classes first. If the teacher gives you a guarantee right away that you will earn over 10,000 yuan a month after studying, and that you will be guaranteed to solve all your psychological problems, don't ask anything, just turn around and leave.