About us

The Department of Counselling was founded on 1 August 2012 as one of the new departments within the Faculty for Social Wellbeing.

We are responsible for the design and delivery of all counselling courses offered by the University of Malta. The first counselling courses were a series of diplomas and postgraduate diplomas in the late 1990’s by the Department of Psychology. In 2007, the University Senate approved the first Master in Counselling course and this has been offered every two years since 2008.

In 2010, as a result of a memorandum of understanding between the University of Malta and the University of Maryland (College Park) a dual degree Master in Transcultural Counselling started to be offered at the Valletta Campus. This postgraduate degree was offered as a dual degree with the University of Maryland to two consecutive cohorts. From 2013 to 2017 the course was offered as a collaborative degree with the University of New Orleans. Since 2017, we are offering this programme as a collaborative degree with the University of the Cumberlands in Kentucky, USA. 

We offer opportunities for PhD. studies and specialisations in Counselling Supervision and Adlerian Counselling. Our next milestone is specialist courses in Child Development and Counselling through Play, Health Counselling, Counselling and Spirituality, Counselling and Assessment, School Counselling and Psychodynamic Counselling.

We are also involved in Peace Education, Ethics Research, a nationwide Dyslexia project, Multicultural Counselling and Social Justice. We have a special relationship with the International Association for Counselling (IAC), the global organisation for counselling with consultative status within the United Nations and have signed memoranda of understanding with the University of Enna-Kore, the University of Verona, the University of Malaysia in Sarawak (UNIMAS) and the University of the Cumberlands.

We strive to educate and equip future counsellors with the necessary skills and capacities to become excellent and virtuous professionals. Our courses provide students with the opportunity to work with clients in a variety of social settings, whilst also allowing time to explore specialised areas of counselling. In addition, through our courses we prepare trainee counsellors to address ethical issues they may encounter, as well as promoting counsellors’ continued training and self-development even after graduation. The research component trains counsellors to make valuable academic contributions to the theoretical and applied fields of counselling, and to the social world at large. The courses successively bring together students from various backgrounds and diverse nationalities, offering an interesting, challenging and diverse learning environment.

The Department prides itself in offering courses that are hands-on as well as academic, and provides the opportunity for trainee counsellors to learn from practice, as well as theory. Our varied and fully-qualified lecturing staff are experts in their area and provide quality teaching and research. We organise lectures and seminars by renowned international academics and counsellors to promote further development.


https://www.um.edu.mt/socialwellbeing/counselling/aboutus/