Membership Upgrades

Student members may apply for Associate Membership upon qualifying with a minimum qualification of Advanced Certificate.

Associate Members may apply for their membership level to be upgraded to Full Membership upon obtaining their Diploma if they can provide evidence that they have been practising as a Counsellor for at least two years. Alternatively, Associate Members who hold the minimum qualification of an Advanced certificate in counselling and can provide evidence that they have been practising as a Counsellor for a total of five years can apply for their membership to be upgraded to Full Membership.

Full Members may apply for their membership level to be upgraded to Fellow Membership upon obtaining their Degree if they can provide evidence that they have been practising as a Counsellor for a total of five years. Alternatively, Full Members who hold a minimum qualification of a Diploma in counselling and can provide evidence that they have been practising as a Counsellor for a total of ten years can apply for their membership to be upgraded to Fellow Membership.

The ISPC believes that qualifications and experience are both equally important in the professional lives of the Counsellor. We therefore allow for membership upgrades to be accessible for all members. The purpose of permitting access to a higher grade of membership through the five and ten year system allows for experienced Counsellors who hold recognised qualifications to gain higher status based on previous experience rather than recent qualifications.

The ISPC recognises that Counsellors, like clients, are individual people. Therefore, it is possible that a highly qualified Counsellor may not in reality be as effective as a more experienced Counsellor who holds a lower qualification. Likewise, if the experienced Counsellor does not keep up to date with counselling training and theory they too may become less effective. Bearing this in mind the ISPC will treat each application as an individual application and awards of membership are therefore awarded at the grade deemed appropriate within the current rules and practices of the ISPC. However, unlike some organisations, once an applicant has been elected to a certain level of membership the qualification requirements are not changed. The assessment will be based on the information and evidence supplied by the applicant and after each individual application has been thoroughly validated. 

*Please note that it is not possible to transfer to the grade of Fellow with only an Advanced Certificate qualification.