15 May 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!
At the time of writing this, I’ve finished all the units of my Graduate Diploma of Counselling at Torrens University, but I’m not quite qualified yet. I’m in that strange limbo between finishing my final term and waiting for results to be released.
So, I feel relieved and proud, but I’m not fully celebrating just yet.
Assuming all goes to plan, I’ll soon be applying for full registration with ACA and stepping out of student membership, and also the student bubble that I’ve been living in for the past year.
Austudy has helped me survive while studying full time, even if it never quite covered the rent. That ends now too. Real life is arriving very quickly.
When I started this course a year ago, I assumed I would move straight into the Masters as quickly as possible. I didn’t really see the Graduate Diploma as enough for me to feel ready. That’s not a reflection on the course. It’s an old familiar pattern for me that I never quite know enough and need to do another course. Then another one.
Before counselling, I’d already done a lot of training. Life coaching, health coaching, transpersonal psychotherapy, somatic work. But even with all those qualifications, I never quite felt ready.
What I realised last year was that my real passion wasn’t coaching. I wasn’t particularly interested in behavioural goal setting. I kept being drawn toward deeper emotional work and therapy.
Once I realised that, I wanted to race to the finish line. Being close to 60 definitely added a sense of urgency. I didn’t feel like I had the luxury of taking things slowly.
But there it was again, that old familiar belief that I wasn’t quite enough yet, that I didn’t know enough yet, that I wasn’t ready. Maybe after the Graduate Diploma. Maybe after the Masters. Maybe after a PhD (yes, I’ve looked into that too).
I genuinely love learning, so this wasn’t entirely irrational. I enjoy academic work and I’ve done well in this course. I can also see my habit of moving the finish line.
At some point I had to admit that no qualification was going to be enough to remove the vulnerability of actually putting myself out there as a counsellor.
What’s changed for me this final term is the client work. The theory has started to become real. Sitting with someone while they talk about their life, their feelings, and sometimes painful things from childhood is very different from writing about it in an assessment. It is a real privilege to be trusted with things that are so personal and so important. Some parts of counselling can only be learned by doing the work.
I’ll continue with the Masters, but not full-time. Even the government thinks that the Graduate Diploma is “enough” to get started so they don’t offer Austudy for the Masters. Who am I to argue with that?
I’ll keep my part time tech job from my previous career in IT while I build my private practice.
I don’t know everything. I never will. But I know enough to practise now.