Stage Two (b): Clinical Training
The second year of clinical training: working with the difficulties clients most often bring
Introduction
Stage Two (b) is the third year of our counselling and psychotherapy training, and your second year of clinical training. The year focuses on the difficulties clients most often bring to therapy and on specialist areas of practice, while you continue to strengthen your core clinical skills.
It completes Stage Two, and opens three routes forward: qualifying as a counsellor, going on to Stage Three, or both. These are set out below.
I have found Connexus to be a warm, highly engaging and life-changing training programme. I will recommend it to others.
This is an academically stretching course, with excellent syllabus, training and assessments.
Thought-provoking, rich and thoroughly enjoyable. Lots of space for reflection, growth and learning. Nurturing.
I have always felt welcome in Connexus and find it a very friendly and professional organisation.
What does Stage Two (b) cover?
Each weekend opens up a different area of clinical practice. Saturdays introduce the theme. Sundays are given to clinical conversation and to Theory into Practice (TIP) groups, where you take the material into your own casework in a small, consistent group.
The areas covered include:
- Ethical practice and safety: risk assessment, safeguarding, and holding ethical boundaries in complex situations
- Loss, grief and bereavement: supporting clients through loss, including complicated grief
- Depression: recognising and working with depression and low mood
- Anxiety, panic and fear: working with anxiety, panic attacks and phobic responses
- Trauma and dissociation: trauma-informed ways of working safely with clients who have experienced trauma
- Addiction and dependency: substance use, behavioural addictions, and what lies beneath them
- Emotion, affect and shame: affect regulation, and working with shame and emotional overwhelm
- Couples and groups: extending your practice beyond individual therapy
- Sex and psychosexual issues: intimate relationships, sexual difficulties, and sexuality and mental health
- Diversity and cultural scripting: how culture, identity and social context shape the therapeutic relationship
- Private practice and professional life: setting up and sustaining your own practice
Assessment
A 2,500-word supervised practice report on your clinical development, a 2,500-word essay on a topic of particular interest to you, and a research poster presented with your peers. Reflective journaling and tutorials run alongside throughout the year.
What outcomes can I expect?
You finish with a clear understanding of how psychological theory applies to distress, conflict and change across a wide range of clinical work, and the skills to practise with confidence. At the end of Stage Two you have three options:
- Qualify as a counsellor: complete the assessments for the NCPS accredited Diploma in Psychotherapeutic Counselling and begin practising.
- Diploma, then Stage Three: take the Diploma and continue to Stage Three, the final year of formal TA training, towards UKCP registration and/or the CTA.
- Straight to Stage Three: continue directly to Stage Three without the Diploma, towards registration as a psychotherapist and the CTA.
Who is it for?
Trainees who have completed Stage Two (a), or equivalent training, and want to qualify as a professionally accredited counsellor, a UKCP registered psychotherapist and/or a Certified Transactional Analyst. We welcome both graduates and non-graduates. If you have trained elsewhere, contact us to talk about your application.
Now open for 2027-28
Length: 11 weekends over one academic year (150 hours)
Times: Sat 9:30 to 17:00 & Sun 9:30 to 16:00
Mode: Face-to-Face
Dates for this course are:
- 11 & 12 Sep 2027
- 16 & 17 Oct
- 13 & 14 Nov
- 11 & 12 Dec
- 15 & 16 Jan 2028
- 12 & 13 Feb
- 11 & 12 Mar
- 1 & 2 Apr
- 13 & 14 May
- 10 & 11 Jun
- 8 & 9 Jul
Cost: £3,400 per year (inclusive of VAT)
Instalment payment plans available
More Information?
Let us know if you have any questions
Meet the tutors
Cazzy Stilwell
CTA (P), TSTA (P). Cazzy has been involved in the TA world for many years and has been a tutor at several TA training establishments. She was also Vice-Chair and Treasurer of UKATA for a 3 year period. Having transitioned from one career to another herself, Cazzy is passionate about the development process of training in Transactional Analysis. She is a UKCP registered psychotherapist and supervisor, a Certified Transactional Analyst (CTA) and a Teaching and Supervising Transactional Analyst (TSTA).
Liz Bingham
PTSTA (P). Liz has a passion for supporting students to build a bridge between the theoretical world of TA and clinical practice. She has particularly enjoyed developing the Theory into Practice (TIP) groups and being part of the exam and assessment team. She is a UKCP-registered psychotherapist and supervisor, holds a CTA (P) and is a Provisional Teaching and Supervising Transactional Analyst, PTSTA (P), and runs a private practice based in Hove and Burgess Hill.