Counselling training in higher education in the United Kingdom: challenges and opportunities for research

An article from Professor Stephen Joseph, Dr David Murphy and Professor John Holford has been published in Counselling and Psychotherapy Research.

Abstract

Many Higher Education Institutes (HEIs) in the United Kingdom (UK) now offer undergraduate and postgraduate courses in counselling. However, counselling is a relatively new and developing profession only beginning to nurture a future generation of research‐active scholars. As such, its development is vulnerable to pressures arising from HEIs preparations for the forthcoming UK Research Excellence Framework (REF). We discuss how counselling is best understood as representing two distinct traditions premised on either a pedagogical or a mental illness discourse. This has implications for how counselling research is situated within HEIs, an understanding of which may help counselling education survive the challenges ahead and find new opportunities to develop and grow. Within HEI's, there is a need to be aware of the different ways of conceptualising the activities of counselling. An opportunity exists to reimagine counselling both as a mental health and as a pedagogical profession.

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