The disciplines of counselling and psychotherapy have generated a range of innovative qualitative research methods. There is the potential for further developments, particularly in relation to methods that reveal how the researcher is implicated in the research. Practitioner-researchers could help to identify potential new methods through a…

This article draws on insights from the sociology of professions to explore the regulatory debate in the psychotherapy and counselling field contrasted with the regulation of arts therapists (art, drama and music therapists). A partial explanation is offered, illustrating the applicability of theory to these groups, but with adaptations to reflect…

Like the Canadian landscape and culture, the status of professional regulation for counselling and psychotherapy is a mosaic reflecting the unique cultural, linguistic and contextual realities of Canada. Statutory regulation in Canada is constitutionally a provincial/territorial matter. In the past five years, a major movement towards professional…

This paper describes the profile of verbal response modes utilised in the expert application of Short-Term Dynamic Psychotherapy (STDP). One hundred and fifteen randomly selected segments from six treatments of STDP were analysed. Trained raters used a verbal response mode coding system to examine the individual speaking turns of an expert…

This article discusses the authors' experiences of the transition from trainee to trainer on a psychotherapeutic training programme, and some of the challenges involved. Using the framework offered by Rizq (2009), the article examines the many parallel processes implicit in the roles of trainee, trainer and therapist. We explore these using…

Counselling culturally diverse populations poses several challenges for mental health professionals in schools as well as the wider community. In 1998, the author interviewed counsellors working in Israeli schools, and categorised their approaches to immigrant pupils in four broad categories: culturally encapsulated assimilator, self-facilitator,…

Reviews have shown that goal consensus and collaboration between client and therapist are significant for treatment outcome. This study introduces a differentiation between goals and tasks in the client's everyday life and goals and tasks in psychotherapy sessions while focusing on the links between the two. Five typical types of problematic goal…

This paper reports some early findings from a research project about the impact on career guidance in England of 14-19 reforms in recent years. We begin by highlighting a paradox in English national policy, since reforms in education and training have created a heightened demand for career guidance, whilst reforms in youth support services have…

This study aimed to explore the experiences of a group of counsellors regarding working with clients who engage in self-harming behaviour, in order to gain an understanding of what it is like to work with this client group. A series of six individual, semi-structured qualitative interviews were carried out, which were then transcribed and analysed…

Telephone counselling with adolescents is well known in many countries all over the world, due to its special characteristics, which seem to suit to adolescents. Some of these characteristics are the low cost, the easy access, the anonymity, as well as the possibility for the callers to have the control over the call regarding its duration as they…

Individuals differ in the type and severity of the difficulties they face when making a career decision. Relying on the Gati, Krausz, and Osipow (1996) taxonomy of career decision-making difficulties, we elicited the judgements of 28 career counselling experts about factors that contribute to the perceived "severity" of the difficulties.…

This paper contributes to the ongoing discussion in this journal about counsellors' experiences of vicarious traumatisation (Sexton, 1999; Dunkley & Whelan, 2006a, b). It builds on my previous paper (Etherington, 2000a) that focused on the role of supervision in moderating the potential impact on helpers, and on the helping relationship, of…

This paper presents the results of research into GP perceptions of the impact of on-site counselling on general practice. The research is part of a larger evaluation of a local enhanced primary care mental service. The initial survey and in-depth interviews with GPs reported here focused on the pre-existing counselling service. The results suggest…

Unlike nursing or social work, counselling is not yet a statutory profession and there is no obvious career progression route. To explore the ways in which graduates of a counselling programme use their training a questionnaire was sent to 143 counselling students who had completed a minimum of Diploma level training. The questionnaires were…

Lifeline Australia Inc. provides a free 24-hour telephone counselling and referral service to all Australians. The trained telephone counsellors of the service record information on many of their calls in Lifeline's Client Service Management Information System (CSMIS). This paper presents a descriptive summary of a national CSMIS data set, which…