Human science and counselling psychology: Closing the gap between research and practice

In this article, the case is made that human science-or ‘qualitative research’ as it is now popularly known–promises to be a better way of closing the gap between research and practice in counselling psychology than has been provided by the natural science approach to the discipline as instantiated in the Boulder model of the scientist-practitioner. Like the practice of counselling psychology, human science focuses on subjectivity and stresses the achievement of an understanding as opposed to the demonstration of truth; it stresses collaboration with participants rather than a subject-object dualism; and it emphasizes holism in contrast with fragmentation. Some practicalities entailed in the conduct of human science in counselling psychology are discussed.