The programme offers advanced academic study of counselling and related practices. It aims to foster the development of critical reflection on the field by professionally qualified practitioners. It complements professional training in counselling by providing students from a range of backgrounds with critical perspectives on counselling and related practices. This programme firmly locates the practice of counselling within the field of social science enquiry. Its distinctive features include close links with professional training in counselling and with social science research concerned with counselling and society. It includes the professionally validated Postgraduate Certificate in Counselling Studies, three other substantive taught courses and a dissertation based on empirical research. The MSc in Counselling Studies provides in-depth knowledge of the theories informing counselling and psychotherapy; social-science perspectives on debates about counselling and psychotherapy; critical appreciation of the key debates, research methods and professional issues in counselling and related fields; transferable interpersonal, conceptual and analytical skills, including critical thinking, self-evaluation and research.