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About Us

The National Counselling & Psychotherapy Society (NCPS) is a Not-for-Profit professional association for counsellors and psychotherapists, and holding an Accredited Register recognised by the Professional Standards Authority

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CPD Courses

What We Do

We offer an extensive range of online Continuing Professional Development (CPD) courses covering counselling skills and associated subjects. These courses have been meticulously crafted for counsellors, health and social care professionals, teachers, and all who interact with the public in their roles. Although these courses don’t provide a pathway to our Accredited Register, the high standards we uphold in the day-to-day running of the Society are mirrored in the quality of our course offerings.

Our courses primarily concentrate on equipping public-facing professionals with counselling and mental health skills. The goal is to bolster these professionals’ understanding and confidence in their daily tasks.

Public-facing professionals frequently encounter situations where psychological, emotional, or mental health concerns profoundly influence the level of care they can provide. Our courses are designed to empower these professionals to handle sensitive subjects with confidence, facilitating a supportive environment where people feel listened to and supported.

Beyond basic counselling skills, we also delve into specific scenarios such as bereavement, self-esteem issues, eating disorders, or dementia. You can find a full list of our courses here. These courses offer a deeper understanding of the complexities involved and provide practical tools to handle these situations.

On successful completion of any of our courses, you will receive a CPD certificate from the Society. Additionally, many of our courses also receive external validation.

Dive into our wide range of courses and enhance your professional skill set while making a difference in people’s lives.

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Join the National Counselling Society

If you’re a counsellor or psychotherapist and not already a member of the NCPS, you can apply to join on our main site. We are one of the leading professional bodies for counsellors and psychotherapists in the UK, and are making a difference in the lives of counsellors and their clients daily through our campaign work, support of our members with ethical queries, and resource for members of the public to find a safe, ethical and appropriately trained counsellor.

Our ethos is that counselling is a unique vocation and that this should be reflected in all our policies. We act to protect counselling from inappropriate regulation if we feel it could harm our work and the diversity, creativity and range of training options that currently exist in our profession. We were a central part of making sure that the previous Government’s inappropriate plans were dropped (2010) and have welcomed the ‘Right Touch Regulation’ offered by the Accredited Register programme.

We make sure that all our members have a say and respect a wide variety of views, modalities (different types of counselling) and training routes. We acknowledge and support counsellors who work in the voluntary sector and those who work part-time as well as in full-time employment or in private practice. We also acknowledge and support the many different approaches in counselling.

More than holding a register, the NCS is member led on key areas of policy and are always open to suggestions and advice from our members – our members, in short, are the source of our expertise. Instead of following a ‘top down’ approach with our members we aim to involve, encourage and work with them at all levels. We believe this is the only appropriate way of running a counselling organisation.

We continue to play a significant role in all aspects of counselling and related therapies and to welcome members, trainers and members of the public who are looking for services of an appropriate professional.