The identity of the

counselling psychologist
Counselling Psychology Settings and Integration
11th December 2017
Dr Gina Di Malta, New School of Psychotherapy and
Counselling & University of Roehampton
 Objectives

• To review the meanings of the professional identity

of counselling psychologists
• To explore one’s identity as a Counselling
Psychologist
• To gain an overview of the roles of counselling
psychologists in workplace settings
 Agenda
• 10.00-10.10: Introduction
• 10.10-10.25: Activity 1: Facts of life
• 10.25-10.55: Class presentation
• 10.55-11.10: Discussion
• 11.10-11.20: Counselling Psychologist’s identity: context and values
• 11:20-12.00: Activity 2: Cooper’s key principles
• 12.00-12:15: break
• 12.15-12:30: Scientist practitioner
• 12.30-12.40: A Counselling Psychologist’s contribution in a multidisciplinary team
• 12.40-12.45: The transition from trainee to qualified Counselling Psychologist
• 12.45-13.00: Activity 3: Developing a personal style
 Activity 1: Facts of life
• Write down four or five important facts: things that
have happened, information about your family, facts
about your personality or history
• Add something important about one of your parent's or
grandparent's life
• Include one LIE
 Activity 1: Facts of life
• Give and receive feedback in pairs.
• Put a star next to the item in the list that you think is a lie.
• Is there a pattern to the list of life facts?
• What does the list say about oneself?
• Could people determine which item was the lie?
• Is the lie meaningful and revealing of one's personality?
• Is there anything important MISSING from the list?
Class presentation
 The Counselling
Psychologist’s identity
 What is counselling psychology?
• Strawbridge and Woolfe (1996): the activities, role and identity cannot be
explored separately from the economic, political and social context.
• Varied roles in an expanding range of work settings
• What is it that makes counselling psychology unique amongst the
psychological disciplines?’ What is it that brings ‘added value’ as each
discipline within psychology seeks to define itself in an increasingly competitive
marketplace?
 What is counselling psychology: Facts

• A branch of applied professional psychology

• Origins in the UK lie in the humanistic movement
• Influences from counselling psychology in the USA and
European Psychotherapy
• Influences from the science of psychology
• 1994 – Division of Counselling Psychology was formed
What’s distinctive about counselling
psychology?
 Humanistic ethos in a historical context

• Humanistic psychology: respect for the personal, subjective

experience of the client over and above notions of diagnosis,
assessment and treatment. Pursuit of innovative,
phenomenological methods for understanding human experience.
• Reintegrating ‘counselling’ into psychology (1980s and early 90s)
• Humanistic ethos
• Phenomenological stance
 Humanistic ethos in context

• subjectivity and inter-subjectivity

• Therapist’s role as collaborative helper
• in America this has included a focus on prevention as
well as community-based interventions (Sue, 2001;
Vera and Speight, 2003)
Counselling Psychology
Values
 Core principles
• Engaging with subjectivity and intersubjectivity,
values and beliefs
• Empathic knowing and respecting first-person
accounts as valid in their own terms
• Not assuming the automatic superiority of any one
way of experiencing, feeling, valuing and knowing
 Core principles
• Recognising social contexts and discrimination
• Empowering rather than controlling
• Demonstrating high standards of anti-discriminatory
practice
• Being grounded in the primacy of the counselling
relationship
 Focus on normal development
• George Howard (1992, pp. 423-424) identifies
fourteen values of the counselling psychologist.
• 1. Respect for the individual is desirable.
• 2. Diversity (by gender, race, religion, culture, sexual
orientation, etc.) is good.
• 3. Good interpersonal relationships are important.
 George Howard’s 14 values
• 4. A satisfactory and productive career is desirable.
• 5. Growth and development (rather than pathology and remediation)
are often preferred conceptual lenses for viewing human problems.
• 6. A scientist-practitioner orientation can lead to both good science
and good practice.
• 7. Counselling psychologists can intervene in lots of settings,
methods and ways.
 George Howard’s 14 values
• 8. Counselling psychologists emphasize increasing a client's ability to solve
problems, make decisions, and cope more effectively with life's major
stressors and daily demands.
• 9. Counselling psychologists foster an awareness of oppression! societal
barriers to self-actualization and free choices.
• 10. Personality and psychopathology are strongly influenced by
environmental factors.
 George Howard’s 14 values
• 11. Counselling psychologists advocate an altruistic rather than
an entrepreneurial approach to their work (i.e., the public good
is more important than personal gain).
• 12. Open-mindedness, methodological diversity, and theoretical
ecumenism are important intellectual skills.
• 13. Prevention is preferable to dealing with existing problems.
• 14. A holistic approach to mind-body-environment issues is
encouraged .
 Activity 2: Cooper’s key principles
(2009)
• 1) A prioritisation of the client’s subjective and intersubjective experiencing (versus a prioritisation of the
therapist’s observations, or ‘objective’ measures’
• 2) A focus on facilitating growth and the actualisation of potential (versus a focus on treating pathology).
• 3) An orientation towards empowering clients (versus viewing empowerment as an adjunct to an absence
of mental illness)
• 4) A commitment to a democratic, non-hierarchical client-therapist relationship (versus a stance of
therapist-as-expert)
• 5) An appreciation of the client as a unique being (versus viewing the client as an instance of universal
laws)
• 6) An understanding of the client as a socially- and relationally-embedded being, including an awareness
that the client may be experiencing discrimination and prejudice (versus a wholly intrapsychic focus)
 Activity 2: Cooper’s key principles
(2009)
• In 6 groups, focus on one of Cooper’s values:
• Write down your understanding of it?
• What does it mean on a personal level?
• Give an example of it in your work?
• Discuss to what extent you agree/disagree

• Each group presents to the class

Counselling Psychologist
Scientist Practionner
 Counselling Psychology in the current
context
• Difficulty holding on to humanistic values in the
contemporary context
• Working within mental health teams and other health care
settings, where notions of ‘sickness’ prevail.
• How, if at all, can these types of activity be reconciled with
the humanistic values underpinning the counselling
psychologist’s philosophy of practice?
 Counselling Psychology in the current
context (Golsworthy, 2004)
• How should we position ourselves, as a profession, in
relation to psychological testing, diagnosis, and
standardized approaches to ‘treatment’ delivery?
• This is part of an on-going debate within counselling
psychology as our methods and roles come to attract
greater political recognition
 What is distinctive about counselling
psychology?
• Phenomenology AND traditional science
• Rigorous empirical enquiry AND
humanistic value base
• Understanding diagnoses and medical
context AND working with individual’s
unique subjective psychological
experience
Source: Hanley, Cutts, Gordon & Scott (2013)
 The Scientist-Practitioner Model devised
at the Boulder conference
• Equal weight to science and practice (therapy, diagnosis and research)
• Training taking place within a university setting
• PhD:
• Year 1: establish a strong foundation in psychology and other applied sciences
• Year 2: learn therapeutic principles and practices needed to treat patients
• Year 3: internship, gain supervised field experience
• Year 4: complete research dissertation

• Since 1949 has been the dominant model for Clinical Psychology Training
• Since 1951 endorsed for Counselling Psychology
 Boulder Conference 1949

73 delegates from psychology and related fields gathering in Boulder,

Colorado, for 15 days to create a model for training clinical psychologists
 Goal of the model (Jones & Mehr, 2007)

• ‘the core goal of the scientist-practitioner model is to train

psychologists who are capable of applying psychological knowledge
to their work with patients as well as possessing the ability to move
the field forward and generate fresh knowledge in the form of new
empirical findings, new theories, or new treatment programs.’
• ‘A psychologist who blends the role of a clinician and a
researcher into one entity is practicing in accordance with the
scientist-practitioner model.’
 Core aspects of the model
• Giving psychological assessment, testing, and intervention in accordance with
scientifically based protocols
• Accessing and integrating scientific findings to make informed healthcare decisions
for patients
• Questioning and testing hypotheses that are relevant to current healthcare;
• Building and maintaining effective cross-disciplinary relationships with
professionals in other fields
• Research-based training and support to other health professions in the process of
providing psychological care;
• Contribute to practice-based research and development to improve the quality of
health care.
 3 roles for scientist-practitioners (Jones &
Mehr, 2007)

• Producers of research – contributing data and findings; using

hypothesis-testing in practice
• Consumers of research – developing and maintaining
knowledge of research; using evidence-based approaches
• Empirical evaluators – evaluating practice, service delivery
 Assumptions (Jones & Mehr, 2007)

• Being knowledgeable and skilled in research enables effective

service delivery including programme evaluation
• Development of a scientific evidence base, a knowledge base,
via research, is required in order to inform practice
• Direct involvement of researchers in clinical practice will result in
research on important social issues – practice-based evidence
 Functions (Lane & Corrie, 2006)
• A vehicle for protecting our unique identity and status
• A framework for providing the profession with a clear direction
• A way of making training and practice more uniform
• A means of making practice socially relevant and protecting the
public against poor practice
• An approach to enquiry that can inform our practice in systematic
ways.
 Limitations
• Many psychologists are unlikely to engage in research once qualified
• Psychologists often rank research as a lower priority, they may not feel the need to read
research
• Model has been critiqued for being unrealistic as difficult to train students to develop a
scientist-practitioner identity
• Different skill sets are needed in science and practice, so is it possible to ‘blend’ the
clinician and the researcher into one?
• Other critiques include that it is in opposition to our counselling psychology value
base, that it is based on the medical model, endorses a positivist view of science – do you
agree?
 Alternative epistemology
• Alternatives to the traditional empirical, positivist model have been put forth
to better understand the science of our practice:
• Social Constructionist approach: we arrive at our understanding of our
clients through a social construction of reality, whereby social and cultural
influences define multiple human realities (Gergen, 1985).
• Critical realist approach: while acknowledging multiple social, cultural and
language-based constructions, it sees human reality as really existing
independently of social context. It retains the idea of a causal order that can
be subjected to experimental analysis (Bhaskar, 1975).
Counselling Psychologist’s
contribution to the
multidisciplinary team
 Where do counselling psychologists
work?
• National Health Service – primary, secondary and tertiary
care
• Private mental health providers and charities
• Private practice
• In organisations/workplace environments
• Forensic settings
• Educational institutions
 DCoP – The BPS Division of Counselling
Psychology
• promotes the professional interests of counselling psychologists
• aims to develop psychology as a profession and as a body of knowledge
and skills and supports division members with training and advice
 DCoP membership
• Membership essential to be ‘chartered psychologist’
• Third-largest professional division in the BPS
• Quarterly publication of Counselling Psychology Review
• e-newsletter
• Website with forum
• CPD events
• Annual conference
 Regulatory context: The HCPC
• All practising psychologists need to be registered with the HCPC
• ‘Counselling psychologist’ is a protected title
• Health and Care Professions Council’s Standards of Proficiency
(SOPs) (2012)
• Health and Care Professions Council’s Standards of Conduct,
Performance and Ethics (2012)
 What is the HCPC?
• statutory regulator of 308,000 health and care professionals
from 16 professions in the United Kingdom
• The role of the Council is to protect the health and well being
of those using or needing the services of registrants.
 Professional context (DCoP Membership
Profile Database May 2013)

• Recent survey into employment status of DCoP

members:
• 60% of all work was in the NHS
• 30% are engaged p/t or f/t in private practice
• 46% of those in employment are in full-time employment
• 54% of those in employment have one, two or more
part-time roles (portfolio career)
 The National Health Service and
counselling psychology
• NHS is the main employer of counselling psychologists
• Counselling psychologists work in all specialities and at all levels of
seniority
• Barriers to employment in the NHS:
• Frequently an essential criterion: complex psychometric testing competency
• Frequently: experience with all age groups and across all settings required
• Dilemmas about working in a medical setting (diagnostic systems,
NICE guidelines)
The transition from trainee to
qualified Counselling
Psychologist
 Self-development
• Relative freedom, less evaluation
• Danger of plateauing at level where comfortable and confident
• Feedback-informed treatment offers a way of working towards
ever-greater therapeutic skills (Miller et al, 2007)
• Useful to revisit the ‘scientific-practitioner’ literature which offers
a variety of ways to apply scientific principles to our practice and
ongoing development (Corrie & Callahan, 2000)
 Discovering and developing a personal
therapeutic style
• IAPT or research settings require strict adherence to a specific
model
• More choice over style influenced by employment context and
individual personality
• Trial and error discovery of preferences
• Becoming more focused on client’s needs than our own
 Activity 3: Developing a personal
style
• Write your 5 most important values relating to your
role as a Counselling Psychologist
• How would these impact on your practice?
• What would be your ideal job after you graduate?
• Share with the group
Thank you
 Further reading (1)
• British Psychological Society Division of Counselling Psychology (2005). Professional
practice guidelines. Leicester: BPS.
• British Psychological Society Guidance for counselling psychology programmes.
http://www.bps.org.uk/system/files/images/counselling_accreditation_2012_web.pdf,
accessed on 05.08.2013
• British Psychological Society Qualification in Counselling Psychology: Supervisor
handbook.
http://exams.bps.org.uk/document-download-area/document-download$.cfm?file_uuid=05F
CE160-DC7B-007A-BAF5-70448699DE5F&ext=pdf
, accessed on 05.08.2013
 Further reading (2)
• Health and Care Professions Council (2012). Standards of conduct, performance and ethics.
http://www.hpc-uk.org/assets/documents/10003B6EStandardsofconduct,performanceandethics.pd
f
, accessed on 05.08.2013
• Health and Care Professions Council (2012). Standards of proficiency: Practitioner
psychologists.
http://www.hcpc-uk.org/assets/documents/10002963SOP_Practitioner_psychologists.pdf,
accessed on 25.05.2013.
• Lennie, C. (2013). Training in counselling psychology. Supplementary material to accompany
Applied Psychology, edited by G. Davey (2011).
http://bcs.wiley.com/he-bcs/Books?action=resource&bcsId=6466&itemId=1444331213&resourc
eId=29315
, accessed on 19.05.2013.
 Further Reading (3)
• McAteer, D. (2010). Philosophical pluralism: Navigating the sea of diversity in
psychotherapeutic and counselling psychology practice. In M. Milton (Ed.), Therapy and
beyond: Counselling psychology contributions to therapeutic and social issues (pp. 5-19).
Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell.
• Milton, M. (2010). Therapy and beyond: Counselling psychology contributions to therapeutic
and social issue). Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell.
• Orlans, V. & van Scoyoc, S. (2009). A short introduction to counselling psychology, London:
Sage.
• Douglas, B., Woolfe, R., Strawbridge, S., Kasket, E., & Galbraith, V. (Eds.) (2016), Handbook
of counselling psychology, 4th ed. London: Sage.