About Wayland Gilley MBACP

What makes Wayland an experienced Counsellor?

I have held a successful private counselling practice in Hebden Bridge and Burnley since 2010. This has included referrals from several national providers of Employee Assistance Programmes (EAP).

Counsellor in counselling services

For several years I have counselled in NHS Talking Therapies and charitable counselling services, including in service management. Most clients in these services would be unable to fund and access private therapy. Issues of social inequality and poverty tend to be more pressing here.

Counsellor Supervision

Since undertaking supervision qualification in 2015, I have supervised both qualified and trainee Counsellors.

I am on the approved supervisors' bank for several Universities, Colleges and Counsellor training providers.

I provide supervision to employees in children and family services, where there is often significant work concerning welfare and risk.

Providing supervision has broadened my practice and enhanced my own counselling.

Counsellor Tutor

I have worked as a counselling tutor up to degree level for over 10 years, mainly on courses enabling counsellors to qualify for practice.

This has enriched my understanding and application of counselling theory and ethics. I was the counselling courses coordinator for a large training provider.

Post-qualification training courses

The post-qualification training courses I have chosen to undertake have been focussed on practical therapeutic development.

I gained a distinction in my Counselling for Depression Qualification, which required an additional supervised placement. It is also a qualification in counselling for anxiety, and enables me to practice within NHS Talking Therapies (IAPT).

My BACP endorsed supervision qualification was also from a Person-Centred tradition and has deepened my ability to reflect and learn from practice.

Background in Education

My interest in counselling developed from a previous career in education. This included school teaching, University research, lecturing and tuition within a large Psychology department.

I hope you can see how I have become an experienced Counsellor through extensive practice and training.

My qualifications:

Post Graduate Certificate in Counselling Supervision (BACP endorsed)
Advanced Certificate in Counselling for Depression in NHS Talking Therapies / IAPT (Distinction)
Level 4 Diploma in Therapeutic Counselling
Post Graduate Certificate in Education (PGCE) – Qualified Teacher Status
BSc (Hons) Psychology

Person-Centred Counselling – My approach as a Counsellor

My training in counselling and supervision has been based on a Person-Centred Approach. This approach was largely responsible for evolving the counselling profession and holds a strong evidence base for alleviating distress.

The approach has a particular focus on developing a very specialist and supportive therapeutic relationship with clients, which enables them to understand themselves, their feelings and needs.

I believe that all people hold a strong potential for growth and change, and that this is the key to greater psychological and emotional well-being regardless of the nature of symptoms and distress experienced.

I work collaboratively and deeply with clients as they decide what to look at and how to move forward. I support clients' self analysis whilst avoiding imposing my own analysis.

I don't integrate other therapies into the counselling. Person-Centred Counsellors believe that such integration undermines the efficacy of their approach.

Whilst it might appear easier to integrate alternative approaches, especially when the counselling feels difficult as it often can, this external Counsellor input can undermine the tendency of all people to heal their pain and develop more useful self-understanding and resilience.

Finding the right Counsellor or Psychotherapist

It is notoriously difficult for new clients to work out what sort of support would benefit them and what therapist to approach.

Making sense of therapists' qualifications and experience is problematic without knowledge from within the therapeutic professions. I hope the following common questions and my responses will benefit your search and decision.

What factors about the therapist help make counselling successful?

In my view the most important factor in the success of counselling is the effectiveness of the therapeutic relationship. The therapist's skill in developing this kind of relationship depends on the length and diversity of their experience as a therapist.

This is where your own gut and intuition as a potential client is useful – try asking yourself: 'Do I think I could work with this therapist?' Contact with the therapist, preferably through an initial session, is the best way of determining this.

How are Counsellors registered and why is this important?

It's essential to check that any Counsellor or Psychotherapist you approach is registered with an appropriate professional association.

These include BACP, UKCP and NCPS. Registration with an appropriate professional association enables Counsellors and Psychotherapists to be listed on the Professional Standards Authority accredited register.

My professional association is BACP, the British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy. This is the UK's largest such professional association.

Registration tells potential clients that the therapist has met the required training standards, has insurance, regular supervision, CPD and works to an Ethical Framework for good practice. It also provides a complaint process should there be a problem with counselling which cannot be resolved with the Counsellor.

If a Counsellor is not registered in this way, there is no guarantee that they are sufficiently qualified, supervised, insured or accountable to a framework for good practice or a complaints process.

What is Counsellor accreditation?

Counsellor accreditation is another complex and confusing area for potential clients to understand.

After qualification and a minimum of two years post qualification experience as a registered Counsellor, it is possible to become a BACP accredited Counsellor. This involves as audit of practice and assessment of reflective studies by BACP.

Some counselling jobs require such accreditation. However this term is made confusing by the fact that other professional associations have don't have the same accreditation process.

For example NCPS (National Counselling and Psychotherapy Society) term all their registered therapists accredited, even if they are newly qualified.

How can I assess the qualifications held by Counsellors and Psychotherapists?

The level, quality and benefit of therapist qualification is a complex and contentious area.

I have spent many years training Counsellors to gain qualifications enabling them to practice. If a Counsellor or Psychotherapist has a degree-based or masters-level qualification, this does not mean they possess greater practical and therapeutic skill and experience than one who qualified with a Diploma.

Therapeutic skills are gained through a minimum of 3 to 4 years practical training on a progression of courses. Practitioner qualification requires trainees to successfully complete a supervised training placement.

Counsellors who undertake a masters or doctoral qualification study theory and research in therapy practice. This may be useful but does not necessarily lead to any experience or improvement in practical therapeutic skill.

Therapy is about working in relationship with clients. A therapists' skill at creating an effective therapeutic relationship largely depends on their personal and emotional development and experience, and this cannot be guaranteed by academic qualification.

Do I need Counselling or Psychotherapy, and what's the difference?

There has always been debate about what the difference between counselling and psychotherapy is, or whether there even is one.

Standard responses to this question held that counselling addressed more specific psychological issues over a shorter time span, whilst psychotherapy looked in depth at patterns and structure of self over a longer period.

My experience is that most Counsellors, and certainly Person-Centred Counsellors find that characterisation and distinction completely inaccurate.

Whilst counselling may begin with focus on a particular issue, it usually evolves to a depth exploration of self, history, patterns of relating, and self reappraisal.

Much counselling is necessarily at depth and often undertaken over a long term, psychotherapy is not always long term, and doesn't always work at depth, especially approaches involving CBT (cognitive behaviour therapy).

There are distinctions in the training courses leading to qualification and registration as a Counsellor or Psychotherapist. It is not accurate to say a Psychotherapist will have more experience than a Counsellor. There are experienced and inexperienced practitioners holding both of these titles.

Recently the SCoPEd (Scope of Practice and Education) framework has been implemented to set out the core training, practice and competence requirements for Counsellors and Psychotherapists.

To the dismay of most Counsellors, this created an explicit hierarchy which differentiates the experience and status of Counsellors and Psychotherapists. Until the implementation of this framework, BACP did not determine a uniform distinction between these titles.

How should I find the most suitable Counsellor or Psychotherapist for me?

I would suggest looking at listings of Counsellors and Psychotherapists such as the Counselling Directory and Psychology Today.

Check who is available locally, look at their experience and note which ones appeal to you.

It may be worth making contact with several to get a better sense of them.

You might have an initial session with more than one before deciding on the right therapist for you.