Bachelor of Counselling

Professional counselling constitutes a safe and confidential partnership between qualified counsellors and their clients, aiming to promote mental health, improve self-awareness and address concerns identified by the client. Grounded in an evidence base, counselling involves the application of empirically validated interventions and specialised interpersonal skills to bring about change and empower clients. The counselling experience often brings about transformative outcomes; encompassing shifts in perspective, fresh insights, increased emotional awareness, increased ability to manage and regulate feelings, new actions or behaviours and new decisions about life. 

Graduates will demonstrate knowledge of various theoretical approaches and counselling microskills to effectively engage with clients from diverse backgrounds. This knowledge will be taught in unit materials, online activities and in some units at intensive schools and assessed throughout the degree through a range of different activities. Graduates start to gain an understanding of a scholarship of practice in the counselling profession. 

Graduates will have developed fundamental communication skills that enable them to form positive therapeutic relationships. These include non-verbal and verbal and written skills that convey listening and understanding when communicating with clients, co-workers, interdisciplinary health professionals. These skills are vital in the workplace, and will be taught, incorporated and practised in tutorials, online activities and intensive schools.

Graduates will demonstrate their ability to develop solutions to case-based problems by working with authentic case study analysis or scenario-based assessments throughout the course.  By using case studies and scenarios, teachers aim to develop student reasoning, problem-solving and decision-making skills, and support students in integrating these skills in practice during their study. 

Graduates will showcase their ability to identify pertinent literature and their capacity for critical analysis. Instruction and guidance will be provided for students on how to locate recent, reliable and relevant resources to support their discussions.

Adhering to ethical practice and engaging in social responsibility is of paramount importance in the counselling profession.  Students are provided an overview of ethical professional practice, including common ethical dilemmas and the process of ethical decision-making.  Graduates are introduced to the Australian Counselling Association’s (ACA) code of ethics to provide guidance on professional decision-making and conduct. 

Critical thinking skills and self-reflection will be cultivated in graduates through a combination of lectures, unit materials, guiding reading and online activities. The completion of assessments will equip graduates with essential lifelong skills, enabling them to skilfully engage in research, articulate ideas in writing and discuss issues pertinent to mental health practice. 

Graduates will be nurtured to cultivate independent learning skills while also being encouraged to work collaboratively. Teamwork actively fostered through interactive tutorials and online discussion where students partake in responding to reflections and sharing ideas in cooperation with both peers and instructors. Consequently, graduates will have acquired the ability to collaborate effectively across diverse settings.