International Registry of Counsellor Education Programs: CACREP's Contribution to the Development of Counseling as a Global Profession

This article addresses the issues and challenges involved in the development of the counseling profession internationally and the role that quality assurance plays in its development. It chronicles the development of the International Registry for Counsellor Education Programs and its contributions, a critical analysis of the strengths and weaknesses of current developments, and hopes for the future of international counselling.     

Counselling young people: Counsellors' perspectives on ‘what works’ – An exploratory study

Aim: Counsellors who work with young people in a range of contexts know that they are not engaging with ‘mini‐adults’. The issues young people bring to counselling are often complex, challenging and wide‐ranging, as adolescents are experiencing times of turbulence and change in their physical, emotional, social and psychological development. This paper focuses on a research project undertaken with five counsellors who work with young people, and asks the question: ‘What works?’ Method: The research project is an in‐depth qualitative study into the counsellor's experience of counselling young people, using a narrative approach. Findings: Four key shared themes emerged: the significance of ‘safety’ in the relationship; building the therapeutic alliance; flexibility and integration relating to theoretical orientation; and the use of creativity. Outcomes: This paper offers counsellors the opportunity to reflect on ‘what works’ and consider the professional knowledge, which underpins their own counselling practice with young people.     

Quantitative and qualitative analysis of a set of goal attainment forms in primary care mental health services

Aims: The aim of this paper is to present an attempt to collate the results of the client‐completed Goal Attainment Form (GAF) and to explore the usefulness of analysing the data in this way. The GAF is used primarily to add qualitative idiosyncratic data to the quantitative data collected by the CORE‐OM (Clinical Outcomes for Routine Evaluation Outcome Measure) questionnaire. Method: A sample of 477 completed GAF were used during short‐term therapy through primary care mental health services to investigate potential correlations in various different aspects between the GAF and the CORE outcome measure (CORE‐OM). The themes from these forms were qualitatively analysed to compare how clients describe their experience of therapy with clinical perspectives. Results: The results reveal several significant correlations. Themes used by clients to describe their problems and benefits of therapy were different from clinicians' perspectives. Discussion and recommendations: Several suggestions and recommendations are offered regarding evaluation, therapy and primary care short‐term therapy services.     

Greed 1

Abstract

This paper discusses the supervisor's responsibility in addressing the vulnerability or wounds of the therapist. Supervisors have much to keep in mind as they conduct their work, not least the client for whose benefit supervision is deemed to be an essential aspect of good practice. Their responsibility towards the client often entails careful exploration of the experience of the counsellor, both through their counter-transferential response to the client and their own personal circumstances. The extent to which the supervisor has a mandate to discuss the psychological well-being, personal difficulties, or organizational conflicts of their supervisee depends on both contractual agreements and the working alliance. The need to recognize counter-transference responses is generic but when they highlight the internal conflicts of the counsellor, the supervisor must decide how far they can or should pursue the unravelling of such conflicts. Therapist difficulties (Schroder & Davis, 2004 Schröder, T. and Davis, J. 2004. Therapists' experience of difficulty in practice. Psychotherapy Research, 14: 328–345. [Taylor & Francis Online], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]) provide a framework for understanding ways in which therapeutic practice is affected by the emotional response of the therapist.     

Narcissism in the modern world

Narcissism has been around since the time of Ovid more than 2000?years ago and the concept has long been a source of study, intrigue, fascination and literature both within and beyond the psychoanalytic community. While Narcissistic Personality Disorder remains a severe and fairly rare clinically diagnosed condition, sub-clinical narcissism or narcissistic traits have reached epidemic proportions with serious consequences. Ever increasing levels of greed, self-obsession, superficial relationships, arrogance and vanity are everywhere apparent and not making us any happier, with common mental health problems on the increase, especially among the young. Seemingly irreversible alterations to family life, technological development – including social media, attitudes to death and dying and celebrity worship, all feature in the rise of our narcissistic society and are interconnected trends. Group greed and grandiosity, as in the world of banking, have led to wide-scale corruption and cover-ups leaving us vulnerable and unable to place our trust in many organisations. Perhaps most sinister of all is our attitude to the planet that supports us, as we play a part in the destruction of much of the environment and many of the species that share the earth with us. Looking at the literature of narcissism, the aim of this paper is to consider ways in which cultural changes have brought about this huge rise in both individual and group egotism. We are seeing many more clients high on the narcissistic spectrum but consideration will be given to the narcissism of the therapist and the impact of the therapist’s narcissism on the client. We live in difficult times and cannot step outside our culture but there are ways of countering our narcissism and helping our clients to do the same. Having compassion for one’s self and recognising how ordinary we really are make for a good start.     

Very brief psychodynamic counselling with young people

Abstract

This paper attempts to re-create the flavour and the atmosphere that is evoked when counsellor and client meet with prior agreement to engage in a piece of very brief counselling work. The context is an informal self-referral service operating on the boundary of a large psychiatric clinic which specializes in psychoanalytic and systemic work.

The situation provides a transitional space for both counsellor and client to observe and to learn from their own responses to each other and in so doing to concentrate their minds on the essential core anxieties that the client is currently experiencing. In this way the area of difficulty can be named and become available for thought.     

Chapter 7: The Dilemma of Aging

SUMMARY

Intergenerational programming has received much attention and has been heralded as beneficial for both children and older adults. However, little has been reported in the literature concerning adult reactions to and benefits of intergenerational activities. A report on the first two years of an ongoing intergenerational project involving a preschool and a retirement community is presented. Four adults who participated regularly were interviewed in depth and findings are reported. All categories from the interviews represented aspects of Erikson's Generativity stage, and indicated that spirituality was enhanced through intergenerational contacts. Opportunities to interact with young children engendered a sense of relatedness to others and hope for the future for the older adult interviewees. Implications of this program that strengthened links to younger generations, and fostered positive affect, well-being, and spirituality in the aging process are discussed.     

Philosophy Unbound: The Idea of Global Philosophy

The future of philosophy is moving towards “global philosophy.” The idea of global philosophy is the view that different philosophical approaches may engage more substantially with each other to solve philosophical problems. Most solutions attempt to use only those available resources located within one philosophical tradition. A more promising approach might be to expand the range of available resources to better assist our ability to offer more compelling solutions. This search for new horizons in order to improve our clarity about philosophical issues is at the heart of global philosophy. The idea of global philosophy encourages us to look beyond our traditions to improve our philosophical problem‐solving by our own lights. Global philosophy is a new approach whose time is coming. This essay offers the first account of this approach and an assessment of its future promise.     

Flourishing students: A longitudinal study on positive emotions,personal resources,and study engagement

The aim of this two-wave questionnaire study with a 4-week interval among 391 Dutch university students was to test a gain cycle of positive emotions, personal resources, and study engagement. As a theoretical basis, this study drew on the broaden-and-build (B&B) theory and the conservation of resources (COR) theory. More specifically, it was hypothesized that the experience of positive emotions predicts students’ future personal resources and study engagement. Moreover, it was expected that there is a longitudinal relationship between personal resources and study engagement. Furthermore, we hypothesized that positive emotions, personal resources, and study engagement are reciprocally related. Results, obtained by means of structural equation modeling, confirmed both causal (except for the positive relationship between positive emotions and study engagement) and reciprocal hypotheses, thereby successfully integrating the B&B theory with the COR theory.