Access and Participation Statement 

New School of Psychotherapy and Counselling (NSPC) 

Last reviewed and updated September 2026 

Who we are and our commitment to access and participation 

The New School of Psychotherapy and Counselling was founded in 1996 to widen access to philosophically informed psychotherapy and counselling, 'talking treatment' to the general public.  The public demand for this approach was apparent to the co-founders of NSPC, Professors Emmy van Deurzen and Digby Tantam through their work as the first two chairs of the United Kingdom Council for Psychotherapy and through the popularity of van Deurzen's book (now in its fourth edition) 'Existential Psychotherapy in Practice. 

Widening access to talking treatment means widening access and participation to training, and this has been fundamental to the development of NSPC leading to the development of courses considering how access and participation can be enhanced for those with the potential to become effective practitioners. By broadening the diversity of trainees in talking therapies and related professions, we can also increase the range of practitioners available to people. This is especially important where clients may prefer to work with someone who understands their particular lived experiences.  

The New School of Psychotherapy and Counselling is committed to widening access to postgraduate training, and to supporting every student to participate fully and succeed, whatever their background. As a school grounded in an existential and humanistic understanding of people, we believe that the diversity of lived experience our students bring is not just incidental to training in psychotherapy, counselling, coaching and other professions but essential to it. A good training should include as much diversity in the student body as possible, to reflect the diversity of paradigms in client work. The helping professions should be shaped and understood from as wide a range of perspectives as possible to truly reflect the nuance of human experience.  

This statement sets out what we do to promote equality of opportunity in access and participation, how we intend to monitor this, and where we intend to improve. We review and republish it on an annual basis. 

What we currently do to improve access and participation 

We provide an introductory course through our sister company, The Existential Academy, for students who are unsure about their ability to complete a masters or doctoral course.  The course is divided into three terms of teaching and can be taken over several years or just one year. 

We provide study skills sessions for all students on a drop-in basis. The majority of our students are returning to study as part of a career change and benefit greatly from academic support tackling topics such as referencing, literature searching and reflective essay writing. 

We provide online study options where possible and in line with professional body requirements. We pioneered online teaching, with our first online course beginning in 1996.  We audited the first cohorts, and the uptake was highest amongst students who were over 50 and had not studied at University level for 20-30 years in some cases. This also increases access to students with caring responsibilities.  

Our premises are fully accessible, including two disabled lifts and braille signage. 

Our admissions officers are encouraged to offer individual advice and support to potential applicants who may be doubtful their suitability because they have specialized in other fields, have overseas degrees, or have special educational needs.  Our admissions staff will support potential applicants who have special needs, such as dyslexia, that may provide an obstacle to the written or online application process, either one the phone, by email, or using one of our two chat clients. 

All students can access a tutor throughout their course.  Many of our students, and all of our psychotherapy or counselling psychology trainees, receive personal therapy as a course requirement. 

Our course planning is highly flexible, allowing students to set their pace. Students take responsibility for their teaching plans and may take one or more terms out to take account of personal needs, with the agreement of the course tutor who has the opportunity to evaluate whether or not a temporary withdrawal would have an adverse effect on the student's completion.  

We charge our fees on a modular basis meaning that students can use the interruption of studies and flexible course planning mechanisms to assist with spreading the costs of their studies rather than paying an annual tuition fee. Instalment plans can also be put in place where needed. 

All of the Diploma, Masters, and Doctoral courses have an option for students to exit with a lower degree if this is required to avoid discontinuation with no final degree at all. 

Our online materials are disability-compliant and are regularly audited to ensure that they remain in line with best practice. 

We provide a termly neurodivergent support group and have a disability champion who is in touch with all students who have declared a disability to the school either during application or subsequently. Students with a qualifying Specific Learning Need can also benefit from a blanket extension to assignments to help manage their progression during the programme. We work with students individually to address their learning needs 

We have a touch points system in place so that students affected personally, professionally or academically by issues or experiences relating to the 9 protected characteristics identified in the Equality Act have a contact designated for confidential pastoral support.  

We provide a free pastoral support service, run by our pastoral care programme leader, for students who want to access a confidential service during their studies with us. 

Monitoring and review 

We monitor the composition of our student body and student outcomes to inform our priorities and to track our progress against them. We are currently strengthening our database which will allow us to track more granular statistical data on admissions, progression and attainment across different cohorts to ensure that we are capturing any barriers which may not be immediately visible. 

Our students also feed back to us in a number of ways, both anonymously through feedback forms, and through student representation at boards of studies which occur biannually. This helps us to identify more qualitative information about student life and the barriers people encounter. 

Our priorities to improve access and participation 

Improving our monitoring of diversity in relation to progression. Whilst diversity at admissions level is essential, we also want to ensure that all of our students have what they need to succeed in their studies. This means developing stronger tracking of progression and attainment especially in relation to marginalised groups. 

Socioeconomic diversity. Our student body is predominantly middle class due to the costs involved. We want to broaden access to people from a wider range of socioeconomic backgrounds, recognising that the cost and duration of training can present a real barrier, and we will look at how our admissions, information and financial support can address this. We are currently seeking registration with the Office for Students which will increase access to student finance. 

Representation of Black, Indigenous, and People of Colour (BIPOC) students. While our racial and ethnic diversity has increased, BIPOC students remain underrepresented relative to our ambitions. We are committed to understanding the reasons and to taking meaningful steps to improve this. This includes ensuring that where possible we have stronger representation of ethnic diversity among teaching staff and that students are signposted to useful external resources such as the black PhD network. 

Gender balance. A female majority reflects the professions we train, but we welcome and actively want to attract more men and nonbinary people into training.  

Disabled students. We have a strong representation of neurodivergent students but a lower proportion of students declaring other disabilities. We want to ensure that our provision and the way we promote it is fully accessible and that all students feel able to disclose if they wish to. We are currently seeking registration with the Office for Students which will increase access to disability support allowances.