Counsellors' perspectives on self-harm and the role of the therapeutic relationship for working with clients who self-harm

Aims: To gain insight into counsellors' experiences of and ideas about self-harm, and to develop understanding of relational depth when working with clients who self-harm. Method: A qualitative exploration of counsellors' perspectives on working with people who self-harm. The research proposal gained approval from the University Ethics Committee. Data were collected from a sample of counsellors who have experience of working with people who self-harm (n = 8) using tape-recorded interviews. Grounded Theory was used for analysis. Findings: Two major categories emerged from the findings: (i) the activity of self-harm; (ii) the therapeutic relationship with people who self-harm. These categories and sub-categories were integrated to form the core category. Implications: Counsellors have a valuable role to play in the lives of people who self-harm, by embodying confidentiality and so facilitating a sense of trust, by opening minds through acceptance, and by expanding knowledge through participation in research. Conclusions: In order to effectively accompany clients from a life of self-harm to a life of self-healing, counsellors must be aware of and responsive to the many concepts underpinning the emergent categories of the research.     

Historical trends in counsellor education dissertations

There exists a dearth of literature on the content, research method and research design trends of dissertations in education. Within one large subfield of education (i.e. counsellor education), an online and full-text archive of dissertations has become available. This archive contains over 200 dissertations produced in Oregon State University’s Counselling Academic Unit from 1947 to 2014. Research questions concerning decadal differences in content, research method and research design were examined empirically. No decadal differences were discovered in the three aforementioned areas. Reasons for these findings were discussed.     

A qualitative content analysis of ChatGPT's client simulation role-play for practising counselling skills

Role-play is often used as a pedagogical technique by counsellor educators to help counsellors-in-training (CITs) learn and practise counselling skills. This study used qualitative content analysis to assess the effectiveness of Chat Generative Pre-Trained Transformer (ChatGPT), an artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot, in simulating client role-play to facilitate practising counselling skills. The author used 10 case vignettes to conduct a simulated role-play where ChatGPT was asked to simulate the client and author as counsellor. The results indicated that ChatGPT demonstrated authenticity, consistency, appropriate emotional expression, cultural sensitivity, empathy and self-awareness while portraying the client. However, at times, ChatGPT's responses to the counsellor's questions appeared overly idealised, lacking the authenticity typically observed in real clients. Furthermore, ChatGPT, as a simulated client, lacked non-verbal cues, limiting the overall experience of counselling skill practice. Recommendations for CITs and future research are discussed.     

Identity and counsellor preference†

This study investigated the relationship of identity development, measured by the Self-Identity Inventory (SII), universal-diverse orientation (UDO), measured by the Miville-Guzman Universality-Diversity Scale- Short (M-GUDS-S), to counsellor preference in a sample of 365 university students. After controlling for personal identity demographic variables, multiple regression analysis indicated SII and UDO accounted for significant additional variance in counsellor preference with Immersion (SII Scale 3), Relativistic Appreciation (MGUDS-S Subscale 2) and Comfort with Differences (MGUDS-S Subscale 3), identified as significant unique predictors. A canonical correlation analysis performed with 11 individual counsellor preference variables as criterion variables and 9 identity salience variables as predictor variables to explore the relationships between identity salience and counsellor preference yielded three significant canonical functions.     

Counsellors’ and psychologists’ experience of working with male survivors of sexual trauma: a pilot study

A qualitative study was undertaken to enhance awareness of the therapeutic needs of the male survivor of sexual trauma through exploration of counsellors’ and psychologists’ experience of working with this client group. The participants were 32 counsellors and psychologists who work for an NHS Trust department. Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis was used to analyse the data which was gathered by means of a postal questionnaire. Six categories emerged from the analysis that highlighted prevalent experience. These were: (a) that the therapist's gender was important, (b) professional concerns, (c) the importance of the relationship, (d) transference/counter transference, (e) that male and female abusive experiences are the same and (f) attention to client's presenting problems. The main conclusions derived from these results and implications for practice are considered.     

Guidelines for Counsellors Working with People of African Ancestry in a Sport Context

The objective this article is to describe five practice guidelines for counsellors working with people of African ancestry in a sport context. The practice guidelines pertain to counsellor training, counsellor perspectives, counsellor services, counsellor ethics and counsellor research. These practice guidelines can assist counsellors working with people of African ancestry in a sport context to focus on both personal development through sport and performance enhancement in sport. This will enable athletes not just to view sport in terms of their win-lose record, but to also strive for excellence in sport by becoming better people. In becoming better people athletes can contribute to building up Africa and her people.     

‘I was seeing more of her’: international counselling trainees' perceived benefits of intercultural clinical practice

Counsellor education in Britain is steadily turning into a multicultural environment. The limited relevant literature focuses on the challenges that ‘culturally different’ and international trainees may encounter. The aim of this paper is to elucidate a rarely exposed aspect of international counselling trainees' training experience, namely, the benefits they identify in practising across languages and cultures during placement. The illustration of this positive perspective is pertinent to the profession, as it expands existing knowledge on international trainees' experience of clinical practice and it challenges the prevailing conceptualisation of this situation as potentially problematic. It is argued that a shift towards a more holistic understanding of this population's counselling experiences is likely to have particularly useful implications for counsellor education and the profession more broadly.     

Heuristic research as a vehicle for personal and professional development

This paper reports one aspect of a more extensive narrative inquiry into how two counsellors experienced their involvement in heuristic research and the contribution it made to their personal development. The paper is located within stories of Becoming a Reflexive Researcher: Using Our Selves in Research (2004) and shows how reflexive conversations enabled participants to co‐construct meaning and create what Rosanna Hertz called ‘reflexive knowledge’ (1996).