Greetings fellow readers! I’m Vandhana, “V” for ease of use, and I’m currently a student in the Counselling Therapist Diploma program at Stenberg College. This is my first blog post ever! I’m excited to share a little about me and this exciting program.
I have been a Licensed Practical Nurse since 2012, and while I love being a nurse and the skills it has given me, I felt as if something was missing. As a nurse, I could give pain medication to ease physical suffering, but the medication didn’t fix the suffering of my patients’ minds; it often helped the symptom but didn’t solve the problem. My patients’ mental health was a much more complex issue with many layers and needed more time and attention than what I could provide in my scope of practice as a nurse.
New career
So, I started looking at ways to build my skills and eventually came across free counselling workshops hosted by Stenberg College and led by industry experts on various topics ranging from Cognitive Behavioural, and Art Therapy, to Compassion, Fatigue and Burnout. I attended three of the four presentations, and after the last one on November 8, 2017, I found myself making an appointment to speak with a Program Advisor at Stenberg College. I wanted to learn more about this career choice and their program.
My appointment was at 11 a.m. on November 9, and by noon, I was frantically working out the details to make the next 88 weeks work. I was officially in the program eight days later, and started my newest adventure the following Monday morning on November 20, 2017, and have not looked back since.
In the last two months, I’ve learned better communication skills, gained a deeper understanding of human behaviour and of my own self, and gotten a brief introduction to what it means to be a counselling therapist in today’s world. The cohort, 15 students from diverse experience, has built a bond and feel like a kind of family as we move forward together in our journey. And we’ve only just begun…
Check out a video of our Counselling Therapist Program.
If you’re interested in learning about our Counselling Therapist Diploma program, join us for our upcoming info session. Click here to learn more and register: www.stenbergcollege.com/events
