What is the difference?

What is the difference between counselling and psychotherapy?

It is difficult to define this, but psychotherapy often works at a deeper level than counselling. A counsellor will usually train for an average of three years, while a psychotherapist usually trains for more than five years. A counsellor usually has to have at least 40 hours of personal therapy as part of training, while a psychotherapist has to have several years of personal therapy, sometimes more than once a week. This means that the psychotherapist has worked intensively to understand their own problems, which in turn, helps them to have a greater understanding of others.

Counselling can be very helpful for a range of problems, but is often of shorter duration than psychotherapy. The more extensive training enables the psychotherapist to offer a deep level of understanding to their clients, usually over a longer period of time.