20 April 2026
Alison Whitwood is a dedicated student counsellor navigating her final year of studies. Throughout 2026, we will follow Alison's journey as she balances academics, practical experience, and personal growth on her path to becoming a professional counsellor. Through her monthly blog, she will share insights, challenges, and valuable lessons, offering a real and relatable perspective on life as a final-year counselling student. Stay tuned for an inspiring year ahead!
Over the last couple of weeks I’ve had a bit of a preview of what a full-time counselling practice might actually be like. I’ve done over 20 sessions in the last two weeks, with more already booked in. It’s new for me to hold this many sessions and I’ve loved it. That part has felt good and, in a way, reassuring. It’s shown me that my training and study are paying off. What’s been more of a lesson is everything that happens around the sessions.
We spend a lot of time in class learning what to do inside the session. How to listen, how to track what matters, and which modality might be most helpful. But that’s only part of being a practising counsellor.
The rest of it feels much more ordinary, but equally important. It’s about my capacity and my ability to be present with the client, regardless of what sort of day I’ve had.
When a session is going well, it’s almost like I’m not there. The questions come naturally. I know when to speak and when to leave space. I’m fully present and at the same time keeping out of the way, so I’m not rubbing up against myself. That, to me, is therapeutic presence.
I can also feel what happens when my capacity starts to drop, especially if I’m tired or I haven’t had enough space between clients to let one session leave me before the next begins.
That became very clear in one session recently. It was a Friday afternoon and I’d already held an 8am session, followed by a long in-person session. There was only time to grab a quick bite to eat, stroke the cat and put the kettle on. I went into the next session thinking I was ready, but quietly hoping it would be light and not too taxing for a Friday afternoon. It wasn’t.
The client went straight into some pretty serious material. It wasn’t that I couldn’t handle the topic. I’d held something similar earlier that week. The difference was that this time I was tired. I could feel my own reactions rising and I had to keep bringing myself back to the client, back to presence, back to what was actually useful. The feedback from the client a couple of days later told me the session had still gone well, but it made something very clear to me. I can’t just turn up and hope I’ve got enough in the tank for whatever arrives. I have to actively manage that.
Part of the work is making sure I’ve actually got enough in me to be useful, and that my own thoughts and opinions are left at the door.
For me, that means noticing what time of day works best. Early morning sessions are hard for me, so no more 8am sessions. Late evening sessions for clients in another time zone are better than 8am, but still not ideal. My sweet spot is late morning to early evening, with 8pm about as late as I want to go. At the moment I can hold three or four sessions a day, no more. That may change with experience, but for now that seems to be my limit.
That’s probably been my biggest learning this term. Not technique, but the structure around the work. The counselling happens inside the session. But I’m starting to see that being present in that session depends a lot on what happens around it. I can’t leave that to chance.