Definition of Counselling and Psychotherapy
Psychotherapy and Counselling are professional activities that utilise an interpersonal relationship to enable people to develop self understanding and to make changes in their lives. Professional counsellors and psychotherapists work within a clearly contracted, principled relationship that enables individuals to obtain assistance in exploring and resolving issues of an interpersonal, intrapsychic, or personal nature.
Professional Psychotherapy/Counselling:
• Utilises Counselling, Psychotherapeutic, and Psychological theories, and a set of advanced interpersonal skills which emphasise processes of facilitation. Such processes are based on an ethos of respect for clients, their values, their beliefs, their uniqueness and the right to self-determination.
• Requires an in-depth training process to develop understanding and knowledge about human behaviour, therapeutic capacities, and ethical and professional boundaries. Because it is explicitly contracted and requires in-depth training to utilise a range of therapeutic interventions, professional Counselling should be differentiated from the use of Counselling skills by other professionals.
• Takes account of the cultural and socio-political context in which the client lives and how these factors affect the presenting problem. This includes an awareness and assessment of cultural influences such as age, development, disability, religion, ethnicity, sexual orientation, socioeconomic status, indigenous identity, nationality, gender. Professional Psychotherapists and Counsellors value such differences and avoid discrimination on the basis of such factors.
• May involve work with current problems, immediate crisis, or long-term difficulties. Depending on the nature of the difficulties, the work may be short-term or long-term, and may involve working with an individual, a couple, a family or a group, and may occur in a variety of organisational contexts in the public or private sectors.
• Regards the processes of self-monitoring, self-examination, self-awareness, self-development, professional development and on-going clinical supervision as central to effective practice. Such practices lead to enhanced capacity to utilise oneself in the therapeutic endeavour.
Although Counselling and Psychotherapy overlap considerably, there are also recognised differences in terms of aims, approaches and training. While the work with clients may be of considerable depth in both modalities, the focus of Counselling is more likely to be on specific problems or changes in life adjustment. Psychotherapy is more concerned with the restructuring of the personality or self. At advanced levels of training, Counselling has a greater overlap with Psychotherapy than at foundation levels.
Further distinctions regarding psychotherapy and counselling are offered in the Register Sections of the PACFA National Register: http://www.pacfa.org.au/memberassoc/cid/3/parent/0/pid/3/t/memberassoc/title/pacfa-sections
