April Haesler- becoming a Counselling Psychologist

 Hi everyone and welcome to our next blog instalment.

Today we learn from a Counselling Psychologist in training, April Haesler. April shares her inspiration and perspiration to reach the final year on the Doctorate. She speaks of her passion for research and working with clients who have experienced trauma, alongside future plans to work in private practice. We hope you will find April's entry stimulating!

You can follow me on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/april-haesler-41b98ab0/

Visit my Counselling Directory profile here: https://www.counselling-directory.org.uk/counsellors/april-haesler

Visit my website here: www.aprilhaeslertherapy.com

As a third-year doctoral student studying Counselling Psychology, I am keen to raise awareness about it as a career path. Clinical Psychology was foregrounded as a career path during my undergraduate studies. Counselling Psychology was an enigma by comparison. I struggled to understand what it was and was confused by the independent study path offered by the BPS (British Psychological Society). I had started my undergraduate degree in Psychology with the aim of being a Psychologist that does therapy – the type of person you see on TV talking to someone on the couch. While that image is rather unrealistic, Counselling Psychology has enabled me to work in therapy in a flexible and diverse way.

I have always had a deep fascination about how the mind works, how mental health can be affected, and the human experience, and this interest led me to studying Psychology at undergraduate level. Imagine my disappointment when I found a subject that took the romance out of the human experience by reducing people to numbers and diagnosis. I still really enjoyed my degree and was particularly drawn to Social Psychology, but by the time I graduated I was unsure where to go next.

After finishing my dissertation, I was exhausted and wondered if I even wanted to stay in Psychology. I remember ordering a prospectus from a local University and reading about an MA in politics. Thankfully, I didn’t give up on Psychology and through some ferocious research I finally began to understand what Counselling Psychology was. This began the next stage of my training journey – getting a place on a Doctorate in Counselling Psychology.

I relocated to London to study the graduate certificate in Counselling Psychology at City, University of London. I was relieved that I had persevered to understand what Counselling Psychology is, because it put the romance back into the human experience. Counselling Psychology promotes viewing people as a whole person who lives in a social context, rather than a more reductive view based in diagnosis. The course promoted a healthy criticism of diagnosis and the medical model, while also being aware of the need to understand diagnostic criteria and medication to be able to work within the NHS. For me, this was the first time I had thought beyond the medicalisation of mental health and it was exciting to start developing my own opinions.

I finished the course at City with a distinction and was faced with the next hurdle to getting onto the Doctorate; finding relevant experience that met the entry requirements. This experience had to be more than the volunteer befriending roles I had during my undergraduate degree and I found it difficult to find the type of experience that would fit in with my paid employment, and meet the requirements.

Eventually I volunteered with Victim Support as an Emotional Support Worker. I worked as an advocate with Police, Housing, etc. I also used basic counselling skills to provide a space for people who had suffered the effects of a crime to explore what had happened to them. I developed my empathy, being non-judgemental, active listening and being congruent. These skills are the bread and butter of therapy and this experience of only having these skills in my tool belt means they are now second nature.

I started the Doctorate in Counselling Psychology at the University of Roehampton in 2020 and I am finishing my third and final year. Each year of the Doctorate has been dedicated to a different therapeutic model, with first year being Person-centred, the second Psychodynamic and the third focused on CBT (Cognitive Behavioural Therapy).

Counselling Psychology promotes integrative work where a therapist draws on multiple models. If some people have a black and white mindset, mine is firmly grey and I never liked the idea of being limited by only studying or mainly focusing on one model.

There are certainly benefits to focusing on one model and the people who do develop a deeper expertise. For me, it is more important to adapt the therapy to the clients needs rather than be prescriptive in the therapy room.

A course requirement is to complete 450 clinical hours and I have attempted to gain a diverse experience in my placements, which I would recommend to anyone pursing this or a similar course. During my first year my placement was in a charity where I worked with carers. I had imagined the presenting issues of the clients would be similar but they were actually very diverse as the experience of caring is very different, depending on the individual circumstances.

During my second year I held two placements, one in the NHS and the other with a private company that offers low cost therapy. The NHS placement offered experience of working within IAPT (Increased Access to Psychological Therapies), in a Primary Care service. I worked short-term with clients and also co-facilitated a relational group. I particularly enjoyed the group therapy as it was very different to individual therapy and interesting to observe the relationships within the group. The private company was more flexible and I was able to practice open ended therapy. I learnt about the benefits of being able to slow down with clients. In contrast, there is a comfort in short term work as the ending is planned and easier to contain.

In my third year I started a placement at a women’s rights organisation where I work with survivors of abuse. I had previously worked with trauma but this placement enabled me to work in a trauma-informed way and with more complex clients. Trauma is a particular area of interest for me, as I have found the trauma informed work to be both challenging and rewarding. As I reach the end of my course, I feel I have a good understanding of how I want to work therapeutically, thanks to the diverse experience I have had in my placements and the teaching on the course.

Part of the Doctorate in Counselling Psychology includes conducting a piece of doctoral research. My research is based on exploring the relationship between femininity, anxiety and self-esteem in women across the ages. My interest in studying gender, started during my undergraduate degree where my dissertation was a qualitative study asking men about their thoughts about online sexism.

I later shifted my interest away from general sexism to more specifically how femininity affects mental wellbeing in women. After conducting a literature review I identified gaps in the current literature; the majority of research is based on college-aged participants, and more modern tools of measurement of femininity are available, but not widely used. I hope to address these gaps with my research, which is a quantitative, survey based study.

The course has been a great experience. I have learnt so much about myself, about therapy, and about my research topic. I’m looking forward to a future career in Counselling Psychology, where I hope to work in private practice and potentially conduct more research. I am currently working privately as a Psychotherapist, and the flexibility it offers with clients is fantastic. I would recommend studying Counselling Psychology to anyone who is interested in studying multiple therapeutic models and viewing clients away from the medical model.

Thank you April for sharing your journey on the blog! It is inspiring to read about your passion for Counselling Psychology, and we wish you every success in your career. 

If you were interested to share your own journey, as a trainee or qualified Practitioner Psychologist, Counsellor, Psychotherapist, Mental Health Nurse, Primary Care Mental Health Worker or PWP, please get in touch!

Kind regards,

The Pathways team