The Profession Of Counselling Psychology - 1582 Words

Introduction The profession of counselling psychology has developed hugely during the past decade, this paper aims to provide a concise and general exploration of the nature of counselling psychology, it’s development history, where it stands among other traditional approaches, and how disciplines of psychology is linked with a range of models of psychotherapy. In 1982 counselling psychology started developing as a section within the British Psychological Society, and in 1994 it was then recognized as a division. Counselling psychology combines theory, research and practice as an alternative to either a career in pure research, such as pursuing a Ph.D degree, or a career as a counsellor or psychotherapist that concentrates in practice.†¦show more content†¦In order to distinguish counselling psychology with related field such as clinical psychology, Woolfe (1900) suggested three factors which characterize the priorities and therapeutic focus in counselling psychology. These factors are: 1.An increasing awareness of the importance of therapeutic relationship. 2.Focus more on humanistic values when compared to the medical model. 3.Facilitate and promote well-being and strength instead of labeling and diagnosing. The first factor is the most significant and characteristic of counselling psychology. Evidence has shown that specific techniques do not contribute as much as a genuine therapeutic relationship (see, for example, Roth and Fonagy, 1996; Hubble et alM 1999; Cooper, 2008). Rogers (1951) in forming his humanistic therapy approach suggested that in order for therapy to facilitate and promote changes a genuine therapeutic relationship should include the dispositions of empathy, acceptance and congruence. As counselling psychology becomes more established as a help profession, another trend in mental health work is gaining strength which counteracts to what counselling psychology tries to establish. In these settings, the weight of assets, combined with a reasonable interest for validity, underlines evidence based practice and supports manualized therapy approaches to offer treatment within limited sessions, it is in line of diagnosing with psychiatrical disorders. It will be hard, if not impossible, to adopt