Please do note, that Psycology, as a field of specialization, is no joke, given your background as an engineer.
Yes, the distance education course is available, and you can do the Post Graduate Diploma course in Counseling Psychology from Annamalai University, which is a reputed University, and where the compulsory one to one sessions will give you some insight.
But if you want this only as an additional qualification, that is a totally different ball game. If you want to change track, you need to do a MA (Psychology) from or MA (Applied Psychology) from the same University or some other University.
Please do understand, only a Phd in Psychology can ever help you to become a counselor. Even after this, you can approach a fabulous institution like the Christian Medical College, Vellore, for an Apprenticeship kind of training. You can find out career options as they have a full fledged cell for Counseling. This is compulsory.
You can never become a counselor overnight. It requires at least five years of experience. You can apply to any good college and pass both the NET and SLET examinations, after you do your Post graduate distance education course. And with experience, you will learn some skills, like counseling of a student.
You will then do well to qualify yourself in applied psychology areas like psychological testing, for which, there is an excellent scope in industries. There are hundreds of professionals in the field of counseling, and so, the competition will be very severe indeed.
You need to become an all rounder. There are private organizations, like the Salaskaar Consultants, Pune, who enable you to become certified in Psychological counseling.
Even then, if you join a reputed hospital like the CMC, Vellore or some where, where there is a counseling unit, you will gather valuable experience, as cancer patients and other terminally ill patients, require a huge amount of experience.
The NIMHANS Bangalore, is an apex institution in this regard. They have some superb qualifications.in this regard. Companies like BHEL have trained counselors. In future, you may get very good opportunities, as residential schools and even some reputed colleges have started outsourcing their requirements for counseling of maladjusted students.
However, since the competition is very tough, and this is for the really long haul, be prepared for the next several years of hard work.
All the very best.
