Perceptions of training

Abstract

Do clinical psychologists' perceptions of counselling psychology and the views expressed in counselling psychology literature correspond with the experience of training?The catalyst for writing this paper was a qualitative pilot research project exploring clinical psychologists' perceptions of counselling psychology. This was carried out by four clinical and two counselling psychology trainees, and consisted of semi-structured interviews with six chartered clinical psychologists. The research particularly focussed my (RG) thoughts on the apparent discrepancy between current definitions of counselling psychology and what trainees are actually being trained to do. Through highlighting some of the important issues currently facing the profession, such as the overlapping roles of psychologists, their breadth of training, and the confusion surrounding the contribution that counselling psychology has to make, the research gave momentum to my own further reflection on the nature of counselling psychology. While I would not wish to draw any generalized conclusions about the views of clinical psychologists on the basis of such a small-scale study, the themes identified in analysing the data are ones which also occur in discussions within counselling psychology literature and in the context of training. I have therefore adopted these themes as a focus for discussion about discrepancies between perceptions of counselling psychology and the experience of training.