The course will draw principally on the psychodynamic approach but will also study other approaches to counselling skills. The psychodynamic approach will highlight the central function of interpersonal relationships, present and past, as the key to self-understanding and development on the part of the trainees, and to the understanding and effective management of the relationships implied in, and developed by, the use of counselling skills in inter-personal work.
The methodology of the course will be experiential, as far as circumstances and needs allow. This approach is offered in the belief that learning from experience offers more reliable and durable self-development and growth in skills than other modes.
While the skills training sessions will thus work experientially as much as possible, each meeting will in addition conclude with a session devoted to experiential learning groups. The group to which each trainee is allocated will as far as possible retain the same membership throughout the course, and work with the same group conductor. The matters referred to or dealt with by trainees during these sessions will remain confidential, though the group conductors will be free to give to the course directorate an assessment of trainees' general progress in self-awareness and ability to use the group as a resource.