Hiya - at 32 you are quite entitled to have career ambitions and hats off to you for putting these on hold for your family.  

I know nothing about counselling, but it sounds to me as if this lady is suggesting appropriate decisions for your situation (in her opinion).  It's up to you what option you take and when.  Great ideas by-the-way.    Self worth is important.   Doing a job which is not at the appropriate level brings it's own challenges.   Could you offer some mentoring to your employer perhaps ie upskill your role?  What would you really like to do, if money was no object?  

Does your work know your situation?  Most employers will be quite flexible when families have caring responsibilities - indeed I think there is a legal obligation on them to do so.  

I don't have any answers - I'm 52 and at the end of my career.  I will finish work in 2022 because of my kidney cancer diagnosis and work just isn't important any more.  

Sending hugs.  I can see where you are coming from and you're definitely not going mad or selfish.  

Claire

I too am no expert on counselling, but my understanding is that a counsellor's role is to help you make decisions for yourself, not to impose any agenda of their own or tell you what to do. Whether to spend more time with your father or to spend more time developing your career or to balance both is your decision and my understanding is that a counsellor should be asking you stuff like "how would you feel if this were to limit the amount of time you could spend with your father?," "what do you see as the advantages and disadvantages of starting this?"  and so on, not telling you what your priorities should be. 

Of course, you do not have to take her advice. If you want to do the further education course or apply for the promotion and her objections do not resonate with you and you don't think it would be too much stress for you or cause you a lot of guilt or whatever, then you have every right to ignore her advice and go ahead anyway. As I understand it, her role is to help you decide what is right for you, not to be an authority. Perhaps she is just raising objections that she wants you to think about rather than saying "you shouldn't do it because..." I don't know, I wasn't there, but could that be a possibility?

Either way, you are not selfish or going mad. Your ideas sound valid to me and I don't think the fact your father is dying means that you shouldn't even think about anything else in your life. It's really a case of how much you can cope with and only you can really decide that. She is there to support you, but she can't really make decisions for you.