Psychology and Counselling Studies

Psychology and counselling studies is a combination that sits naturally together, bringing the scientific study of mind and behaviour into dialogue with the therapeutic skills and self-awareness that counselling work requires. Psychology provides the empirical and theoretical foundations: how people develop, how they think and feel, how mental health difficulties arise, and what the evidence says about effective intervention. Counselling studies introduces the relational and practical dimensions of helping people: the skills of listening, empathy, reflection, and therapeutic communication.

This three-year full-time programme at Birmingham Newman University develops both strands alongside each other. You will study the core areas of psychology, including cognitive, developmental, social, and biological psychology, as well as research methods and statistics, which are fundamental to the scientific basis of the discipline. The counselling strand introduces theoretical approaches to therapy, including person-centred, psychodynamic, and cognitive-behavioural perspectives, and develops the personal and relational skills that effective helping requires.

Newman University's ethos of care and community is well suited to a programme that takes both academic rigour and human wellbeing seriously.

Graduates from this programme are well prepared for roles in mental health services, social care, education, youth work, and the voluntary sector. Many go on to further training as counsellors or psychotherapists, working in private practice, employee assistance programmes, NHS Talking Therapies services, or charitable organisations. The psychology element of the degree also opens routes into assistant psychologist posts and postgraduate clinical or counselling psychology training for those who want to qualify as psychologists.

The combination of scientific understanding and relational skill makes graduates distinctively equipped for the full range of helping professions.