Psychology with Counselling

Psychology with counselling is a combination that develops both the scientific understanding of human behaviour and the therapeutic skills needed to support people experiencing psychological distress. Psychology as an academic discipline teaches you to evaluate evidence, understand cognitive processes, and think critically about the claims made about human behaviour. Counselling skills training develops the empathic listening, reflective practice, and interpersonal competencies needed to work therapeutically with others.

Together they produce graduates who bring both intellectual rigour and genuine human sensitivity to the helping professions.

At Teesside, this programme develops the skills needed to read and evaluate psychological information, theories, and research papers. You will explore different cognitive biases, examine common errors that people make when assessing arguments and evaluating evidence, and learn how to overcome widespread mistakes in reasoning, building the critical thinking capacity that psychology demands. Alongside this scientific foundation, you will develop counselling skills through practical training that is assessed alongside your academic work.

The programme is studied part-time, making it genuinely accessible to those managing work or family commitments alongside their studies.

Graduates of psychology with counselling programmes pursue careers in healthcare, mental health services, educational support, the voluntary sector, human resources, and counselling and therapeutic services. The psychology element provides the academic foundation for routes into clinical, educational, or health psychology through further postgraduate training. Many graduates also build careers in counselling or psychotherapy by combining the programme with further accredited therapeutic training, or move into roles in social care, wellbeing services, and community support where both psychological knowledge and interpersonal skill are consistently valued.