Psychosocial Counseling and Coaching A specialization within the Social Work degree program

The specialization “Psychosocial Counseling and Coaching” combines theoretical fundamentals with methodical depth for professional counseling and coaching processes in social work. You will learn to support people going through change, decisions and crisis situations, strengthen your ability to act, and learn to promote psychosocial health. At the center of this is an empowering approach which is resource-oriented and which invites reflection on the systems at play. You will work with a multi-perspective understanding of counseling (including social work, psychodynamic, humanist and systemic perspectives) and will reflect on attitude, ethics, power asymmetries, diversity, intersectionality and culturally sensitive communication. Supervision and intervision (that is, colleagues advising each other on a case) are central elements of the professionalization process. In this context, self-awareness, concepts of self-care and the ability to keep a professional distance play a particularly important role.

You’ll be able to plan and structure counseling and coaching processes analytically, and conduct them professionally – in a context- and target group-specific way for individuals, couples, groups and teams. You’ll be able to grasp complex life situations, analyze them from multiple perspectives, and develop suitable intervention strategies. You might find yourself working in a counselling center (life coaching, parenting advice, school counseling, addiction counseling), in education, in youth and family welfare, in a hospital, in social and community psychiatry, in a hospice/palliative care or bereavement support, or in corporate health management. Demand is also growing for people with these qualifications in HR development, supervision and organizational consulting.