Geldard, D., Geldard, K., & Foo, R. Y. (2022). Basic personal counselling: A training manual for counsellors. (9th ed.). Cengage Learning.
In order to qualify as a professional counsellor, a person needs to complete an accredited course of study and training, have ongoing supervision, and meet the requirements of the relevant counselling professional body in their country of residence. In Australia there are two professional bodies. Membership of either of these can lead to national registration as a counsellor. The two bodies are the Psychotherapy and Counselling Federation of Australia (PACFA) and the Australian Counsellors Association (ACA).
We believe that it is not sufficient for counsellors just to complete an academic training course. Additionally, it is desirable that training should include either personal therapy or experiential groupwork, and also attendance at professional development workshops.
Both during and subsequent to training all counsellors need to undergo ongoing supervision so that they can debrief, discuss their work, improve their skills and address personal issues that might be triggered as a consequence of counselling others.
When in supervision counsellors often find themselves in a position similar to that of a person seeking counselling help, as they seek to resolve their own personal issues which may have been triggered by the work they are doing, or have done, as a counsellor.
Counsellors are required to maintain their current accreditation by undergoing professional development activities to demonstrate a commitment to ongoing training and development. Most importantly they are required to practise in accordance with the relevant code of ethics for counsellors in their state or country of residence.
As counsellors we must value the people who seek our help so that we offer them the best possible counselling service. It is therefore not ethical for a person seeking help to be seen by a new counsellor unless that counsellor is being adequately supervised. Additionally, our belief is that all counsellors, new and experienced, should have ongoing supervision. There are several important and quite different reasons for this, including the following:
- To enable the counsellor to work through their own personal issues
- To enable the counsellor to upgrade their skills
- To provide an external review of the counselling process
- To address issues concerning dependency and professional boundaries. We will now consider each of the above.
To Enable the Counsellor to Work Through Personal Issues
You may be surprised at the suggestion that supervision is required to enable a counsellor to work through their own personal issues. You may be asking, ‘If counselling is for the benefit of the person seeking help and not the counsellor, why should the counsellor use counselling supervision in order to deal with their own issues?’ The answer is simple: unless a counsellor owns and deals with their own issues, these issues are quite likely to interfere with their ability to counsel effectively. The literature on the subject of personal therapy as enriching for personal and/ore professional therapists view the experience of personal therapy as enriching for personal and/or professional reasons. Studies conducted with students in the professional helping fields have found similar positive views regarding the value of attending personal therapy (Nowlin, 2016).
Frequently, a counsellor will feel emotional pain when a person seeking help discusses issues similar to the counsellor’s own unresolved emotional issues.
Consequently, when issues are discussed that are painful for the counsellor as a result of unresolved issues, the counsellor may consciously or unconsciously avoid their own pain in a number of ways during the counselling session:
- The counsellor might deflect away from the painful issue by encouraging the person to talk about something else.
- The counsellor might try to comfort the person rather than help them deal with the issue.
- The counsellor might attempt to encourage the person to pursue a course of action that in some way satisfies the counsellor’s own needs. The counsellor may wish, for example, that they had taken a particular course of action in their own life and may encourage the person to take a similar course.
- The counsellor may avoid facing both their own issue and the person’s by failing to recognise the issues and subconsciously suppressing them.
A perceptive supervisor will spot counsellor behaviour that demonstrates avoidance of painful issues and will ask the supervisee to explore whatever was happening emotionally within them when the avoidance occurred. This means that counsellors can benefit from exploring their own issues on an ongoing basis to ensure the effectiveness of counselling is enhanced.
Most people don’t look closely at their own emotional problems unless they are causing them considerable distress. It is a natural human defence to suppress uncomfortable feelings and not to delve into them without good reason. However, a counsellor may benefit from delving into uncomfortable feelings, because if they have a problem that they can’t face, then it may be difficult for them to help a person with a similar problem. As counsellors, the spin-off for us is that our personal growth is enhanced when we explore and deal with our own painful issues as they come into our awareness.
To Enable the Counsellor to Upgrade Their Skills
Even experienced counsellors find it useful and valuable to learn from other counsellors. We all have a different range of skills and use differing styles when counselling. During our counselling careers we have both discovered that our own counselling styles have continued to change. This has enabled us to integrate new skills into our work and to continue to take a fresh approach to counselling.
We find that it is sometimes useful for us to receive input from counsellors who use different frameworks from ours. By doing this we usually find that we learn some new ideas for enhancing our work.
Although didactic learning can be useful for counsellors, it seems to us that the experience of personal supervision is more powerful in promoting professional development. Learning through supervision can integrate skill training with personal growth. Additionally, the counsellor is reminded in supervision of what it is like to be in the position of a person seeking help. This can be helpful in enabling a counsellor to continually meet with each person seeking help as a person of equal value.
To Provide an External Review of the Counselling Process
Often a person seeking help will not see what seems obvious when in a counselling session. This is because they are personally and deeply involved in their situation. In comparison, the counsellor, after joining with them and trying to see the world in the way they do, can stand back to take a more objective view and see more clearly. A parallel process happens when a counsellor is being supervised. The supervisor is able to view the counselling process and the case details in a different way from the counsellor. The supervisor may recognise processes that are occurring for the person seeking help or the counsellor that have been unrecognised. Therefore, a supervisor is able to provide useful input on ways of working with particular people who are seeking help. Additionally, supervisors have the benefit of experience, which can be a source of useful information for the supervisee.
To Address Issues Concerning Dependency and Professional Boundaries
As discussed in the previous paragraph, a supervisor may recognise processes that have not been identified by the counsellor. Of specific importance are issues of dependency and respect for professional boundaries.
It can sometimes be hard for new counsellors to recognise when the time for terminating a series of counselling sessions has been reached. This may be partly due to issues of dependence that inevitably will develop in some counselling relationships (see Chapter 12). Sometimes it is hard for a counsellor to recognise whether the person seeking help really does have a need for further counselling or whether dependency is occurring on the part of the person or the counsellor themselves.
People who become dependent on the counselling relationship sometimes produce new material for discussion when the counselling process is moving towards closure. This may be as a consequence of a subconscious or conscious desire to prolong the relationship. By discussing cases in supervision, a supervisor may be able to recognise when dependency is interfering with appropriate termination processes. Additionally, a supervisor may be able to help a counsellor devise suitable strategies for managing dependency issues.
Some counsellors have difficulty in recognising when their own personal feelings towards a person seeking help could result in behaviours that would inappropriately transgress professional boundaries, and consequently interfere with the counselling process. Additionally, new counsellors sometimes have difficulty in knowing how to respond to direct or indirect invitations for friendship and closeness from people seeking their help. Once again, supervision can help a counsellor to recognise inappropriate processes that are occurring and to develop appropriate strategies to deal with these processes.
