Counseling

What Is Counseling?

Within the landscape of emerging professions, Counseling stands as a meaningful and essential approach in helping relationships. Its foundation, the Person-Centered Approach, emphasises and values the individual’s inherent resources and capacities, supporting them in autonomously orienting themselves toward their own potential and sense of wholeness.

This premise lays the groundwork for a respectful, non-invasive, and non-directive relationship with the client, who remains fully responsible for their choices, especially during the most challenging and crisis-filled moments, placing themselves at the centre of their self-care process.

A specific approach within this field is Body-Oriented Counseling, a way of accompanying the individual through a process in which the wisdom of the body, the capacity for self-regulation, and deep trust emerge. In this context, the body is not seen merely as a tool for interpretation, but as a dynamic element in the process of personal development.

In Italy, the professional role of the Counselor is regulated by the provisions governing unorganised professions (Law no. 4 of January 14, 2013).

WATSU® Counseling

This project was created from the vision of Keli Procopio and Patrizia Belardi, both Body-Oriented Counselors, with the aim of enhancing the professional role of the WATSU® Practitioner, already rich in relational and somatic skills, by offering additional tools and competencies specific to the Counseling profession.

Thanks to the specificity of our WATSU® training, which already includes personal experiential work closely aligned with Counseling themes, WATSU ITALIA has been officially recognised as a Counseling school by S.I.Co. (Italian Counseling Association).

We have developed a training programme consisting of six in-person modules, combining theoretical components with practical experiential work both in water and on land.

Programme Structure

Total training hours: 132 hours (6 training modules)
Internship and supervision: 150 hours
Individual sessions: 50 hours to be completed with a licensed Psychologist and/or Psychotherapist

Module Overview

• Module 1 — Skills related to Presence of Being; Rogerian Counseling; active listening
• Module 2 — Energetic perspective on development; body reading; character structures
• Module 3 — Ethics and deontology; Counseling and psychodynamics; referral
• Module 4 — Verbal work techniques; integrating the session with in-water practice
• Module 5 — Social Counseling; neurophysiology of trauma; Polyvagal approach in water
• Module 6 — Counseling in water; creating the setting; practice with external clients

Counseling Skills

Counseling skills consist of a set of core competencies and relational abilities that support professionals in the effective practice of their work. They are essential for anyone who works in close contact with people.

To acquire these skills, the training pathway consists of a total of 72 hours, including 40 hours of theoretical training and 32 hours of supervised practical experience, completed over a period of six months.