Tariki Trust offers a full professional training in counselling and psychotherapy from an Other-Centred Approach as well as opportunities for continuing professional development. This approach is grounded in a Buddhist understanding of psychology and draws on methodologies from both Buddhist and western therapies.
Teaching is delivered in attendance-based training courses in applied Buddhist psychology and through Distance Learning sequences. The course is personalised, flexible and based on over thirty years of experience in training professional counsellors and psychotherapists.
UK students seeking BACP accreditation will find the Diploma in Counselling, taken in conjunction with the Foundation Certificate or its equivalent, meets training hours requirements. This site offers a summary of training offered. Further details of training requirements can be found in the course handbook, or you can read a brief account of course regulations and procedures .
Core texts for courses on this programme are Caroline Brazier's Books Buddhist Psychology (Constable Robinson 2003) and Other-Centred Therapy (O-Books 2009). Read more about Buddhist Psychology. Tariki Trust sponsors several on-going psychotherapy, counselling and groupwork training schemes.
The course draws on Buddhist psychology as presented in the major teachings of the Buddha, which were developed into a systematic analysis of mind by the Abhidharmikas (c. 400-200BCE) and transformed into a working psychology by the Yogacarins (c. 300CE). Most course staff are Buddhist practitioners of many years standing, as well as having practised as psychotherapists for many years. They are thus well grounded in Buddhism as well as western psychology and counselling theory. Theoretical presentations are well grounded in practice examples and in practical experimentation.
The programme's real value is both in its unique content and in its style of teaching. It offers a learning community where co-operative experimentation and enquiry are valued and the process approach integrates experiential, spiritual and cognitive learning. Students are encouraged to develop their own integration of theory and practice and to challenge pre-conceptions. This is not a one method course, and dialogue is encouraged within the parameters of the Buddhist paradigm. Many students have pre-existing qualifications, and the quality of their contributions to courses is high. At the same time, beginners quickly find a place and discover that life experience and enthusiasm are valued as highly as formal qualifications.
In UK we currently offer a minimum of 27 days of training in counselling and psychotherapy each academic year. These are organised as one nine day block per term. Each block is divided into sections, and so may be attended as a whole or in parts. Broadly, the weekend sections focus on skills and theory, whilst the mid week section consists of a four day thematic group plus a day seminar, but all courses offer some balance of theory, practice and personal work. Students are free to choose any combination of these courses in order to meet the attendance requirements of the programme. This enables flexibility. Overseas students may choose to attend full nine day blocks, maximising learning time for each visit made, whilst students living locally can concentrate their learning into times that suit their other commitments by attending predominantly at weekends or mid-week. In general it is recommended that students try to attend some balance of mid-week and weekend courses. In addition students may supplement their training days by attending some of the other training events run by Tariki as specified in the course prospectus. In particular some students are now integrating participation in units from the Ten Directions training programme in environmental therapy.
In addition to the courses shown on the calendar, it is sometimes possible to offer courses outside the UK in other centres when these are arranged by local groups. Courses already scheduled are listed in the calendar. All courses are offered from a fully integrated Buddhist psychology perspective making this a unique course in the UK.