Learning Outcomes for Module FC5003: Developing a Professional Approach to Counselling, University of Gloucestershire
The concept of counselling psychology has gained recognition as an area of expertise in the United Kingdom during the establishment of Counselling Psychology Section in 1982 by the British Psychological Society (BPS) (Bacp.co.uk 2018). The institution of this segment emerged out of the necessity to take into consideration the association between psychology and counselling in UK and further identify the position of counselling psychology in the domain of applied psychology. However, in the year 1989, this Section transformed into a “Special Group” with its individual practice procedures and guidelines and further exercised as a ‘half way house’ between a methodological inclined section and an expertise body (Health.gov 2018).
The concept of counselling in United Kingdom is not operated under statutory regulation and has been supervised and underpinned by various organizations whereby none of which have any formal recognition by the government (Moodley, Gielen and Wu 2013). The Health Professions Council (HPC) that is autonomous of any official body released a government report on Trust Assurance and Safety-The Regulation of Health Professionals in the 21st century that has stated that the British Government has aimed to introduce constitutional regulation aimed for psychotherapists and counsellors (Wilde, McTavish and Crawshaw 2014The report will evaluate the practice of BPS and further distinguish between the limited, short term and enduring counselling practices.
It will further analyse the foundations which have been proposed by Tim Bond which must be implemented as sources of guidance and assistance for professional practice. Tim Bond outlines the principles, ideologies and ethical standards inherent in the domain of counselling. It will also assess the fundamental entities of making a client evaluation and comprehend the approaches through which access to counselling can be viewed within a broader aspect. In addition to this, the paper will focus on encouraging formal and professional development concerns for counsellors along with assessing the counselling requirements of clients and demonstrate an ability to implement skills specifically to short term counselling work.
Discussion
Professional codes and guidelines
The British Association for Counselling emerged from the Standing Conference for the Advancement of Counselling in 1970s at the initiation of the National Council for Voluntary Organizations. The BACP recognized as a large organization that several counsellors around Britain are registered with. This agency not only operates as a charity but is also known as an accrediting organization that establishes certain standards and codes of morals and principles for counsellors and psychotherapists in order to make an adherence to the codes (Killick and Schaverien 2013).
The Emergence of Counselling Psychology as an Area of Expertise in the United Kingdom
However, if psychotherapists are provided with accreditation by the BACP it implies that they have completed a significant level of induction and knowledge approved by the Association. The BACP is recognized for its immense dedication for maintaining and improving good and ethical practice. However, this guidance on the fundamental elements of ethical practice has been stated to take into consideration the altering circumstances whereby counselling and psychotherapy are now being served in particular:
- Transformations in the array of concerns and levels of need presented by clients
- The development in levels of knowledge accessible from practitioners with the growth in the rate of availability of induction and consultative encouragement and supervision (Connolly et al. 2014).
In the opinion of Tim Bond, the British Association for Counselling has relatively published certain comprehensive and role centric codes for the range of counsellors, instructors and users of the counselling expertise and competence which have been reportedly creating collaboration with all members of the association of BAC. Furthermore the fundamental guidance for the associates of the British Psychological Society (BPS) which has been effectively collated into the framework of Code of Conduct, Ethical Principles and Guidelines which has been associating all members of the society. However Bond stated that the United Kingdom Council for Psychotherapy (UKCP) entails related framework of the fundamental set of ethical and moral guidelines which has further been binding on the range of members and shape the least needs and requirements for the codes of organizational associates.
Law
Practitioners need to abide by several laws and regulation when it comes to Psychological Counselling. One of the major rules that have been set by BACP Legal Resources (2016) is that councillors must keep the identity of the healthcare service users confidential. The above mentioned concern also falls under the BACP Ethical Framework (2016) (Killick and Schaverien 2013). According to the above mentioned law, it is the sole ethical responsibility of the consumers to protect all the information provided by the healthcare service users to the practitioner during his or her treatment.
Considering the fact that that generally, the data provided by a healthcare service user to the practitioner is highly personal, any unauthorised access to those information has the potential to bring about severe legal as well as social issues that are highly difficult to handle. Apart from this, according to BACP quality (2016), it is unethical to neglect or provide inappropriate care to the healthcare service users on the basis of her age, religion, race and gender. The mentioned ethical framework states that it is one of the major duties of the healthcare professional to provide proper care to all of his clients equally. Moreover, according to the Equality act, all individuals should be provided equal opportunity to access the healthcare system irrespective of age, gender, race, disability and sexual orientation (Bacp.co.uk 2018).
Guidelines and Codes of Ethics in Counselling Practice: British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy, British Psychological Society, and the United Kingdom Council for Psychotherapy
Agency Policy
One of the major components of agency practice includes Professional laws, guidelines and policies. According to the BACP Ethical Framework, all the counsellors who are register under BACP must maintain a good practice by adopting the ‘client first’ policy and working on the professional standard of ethics. One of the major advantages that can be obtained by counsellors by adhering to the contract is accountability on the part of the counsellor and liability on the part of the agency. Generally, the agency work that is followed by majority of agencies under BACP includes three steps. In the first step, the client undergoes a face to face counselling with the counsellor which is known as the assessment session. According to the BACP agency policy, all the healthcare home should recruit qualified counsellors as supervisor whose duty is to ensure that all the trainee practitioners are working effectively while gathering information from the healthcare service users, assign his current psychological state and listing to the issues faced by him with full attention (Wilde, McTavish and Crawshaw 2014).
The assignment help suggested by the BACP Agency policy includes gathering information about the nature faced by the client, enquiring the history of the issue and any other factors that has affected the issue directly or indirectly (Piepoli et al. 2014). All this assessment helps the counsellor to develop a better insight of whether the issue of the client is within the limits of the counsellor or not. All he agencies have an agency policy which is abided by all the practitioners while provided referral to the clients. Without the policy, the way of referral provide by each counsellor would have been different which could give rise to utter confusion.
Ethical analysis
All clients have been privileged to improve standards of practice and care from their practitioners in sessions of psychotherapy and counselling. It is important to note that good and ethical standards of practice and care involves formal and professional competence, Well established relationships with stakeholders clients and colleagues and dedication to being ethically concerned through observance of professional ethics. Enhanced quality of concern and care required competently delivered services that accomplished the clients’ requirements by practitioners who are suitably supported and responsible (Hore 2014). Furthermore, Bond claims that practitioners or the ones establishing themselves towards professional approach of counselling should contribute careful consideration to the restrictions of the induction and experience along with the work within these limitations for the taking benefits of accessible official support as the lack of presence may constitute a critical limitation (Bond 2015).
Laws and Regulations in Psychological Counselling: Confidentiality, Privacy, and Equal Opportunity
However when the practitioners have two or more do on associations take place types of relationship concurrently with a client for example a client along with training or a colleague and supervise (Kasket 2017). However the existence of a dual Association with the client is seldom neutral and arise well established advantages or detrimental influence that may not always be easily foreseeable. However for these reasons practitioners are required to take in further consideration the implications of getting involved into dual relationships with client in order to avoid entering into associations that are likely to be detrimental to clients and to be readily responsible to clients as well as colleagues for the occurrence of any dual relationships how about taking into consideration both BACP and the National Counselling Society of United Kingdom the procedures and regulations for formal practice have been related to certain consistencies (Jessop 2017).
According to Bond, it is important to recognize that the current status of BACP signifies that suggests over 18 days within other circumstances before a potential psychotherapist can apply for further accreditation while on the contrary the UKCP has been making recommendations for counsellors for the completion of a level of 6 courses in counselling that usually comprises of over 90 hours and further permits the future counsellors to receive accreditation (Bond 2011). It has been noted that the most complacent accounts of the moral as well as ethical impact manifested in the professional regulation have been explicitly depicted in regards of the amalgamation of principles and standards existing within the issues with each other. However, this approach not necessarily assume that there has been a sole universal ethical method and further involves a wide array of understandings and awareness underpinning a universal ethical orientation. In the book ‘Standards and Ethics for Counselling in Action’ by Tim Bond has proposed the application of six fundamental principles namely
- Respect and dignity for client autonomy (literally self-government)
- Commitment or conformity that involves the showing respect to the commitment which structure the therapist-client association (Bond 2015).
- Justice (which involves an unbiased distribution of services within the society)
- Commitment and dedication in providing advantages to the client
- Avoiding conflicting situations with clients
- Self-interest which entails the grants of the therapists to all preceding five principles.
At this juncture it is important to note that none of these organizations encourage the member to be simultaneously engaged with any other psychotherapy organization. However the situations raise certain queries related to the level of morality of a member to be associated with single professional body if they engage in contradictory moral principles and ethics (Ben-David 2017). However Tim Bond reported that since there has been lack of regulation or proper procedures within the formal training of counsellors or psychotherapist all members can decide to be associated with professional organizations of their choice and can further take decisions against being associated with any (Bond 2011)..
Agency Policy for Professional Counselling Practice: Professional Standard of Ethics and Policies
Ethics and values implicit in therapeutic operation
The evolution of empirically supported treatment EST protocols has changed the fields of psychotherapy and has further enhanced the quality of concern and care that cognitive behaviour therapists can provide. However it is important to note that the EST protocols do not often accomplish the requirements of the therapists and has several protocols which generally target a single DSM syndrome in contradiction to the co-morbidity which is the rule rather than the exception in professional approach of counselling (Johnstone and Dallos 2013). Secondly, EST protocols fail to reach the demands of counsellors as several patients tend to receive more than one therapy at the same time.
Thus, the domain of counselling has introduced a case formulation driven approach towards the cognitive behaviour therapy which primarily concentrates on the formulations as well as interventions in the EST by further assisting the counsellors to engage in several clinical decision making which are not directly addressed while approaching EST (Tracey et al. 2014). Furthermore, it has been stated by Bond, that certain distinctive models of therapy or counselling have been produced in order to provide effective therapeutic outcomes rather than as exercises in secular ethics.
However, they involve moral predispositions which have been immensely inherent (Bond 2011).. A detailed case formulation incorporates various elements and intense to amalgamate into a coherent whole whereby all the clients or patients symptoms disorders as well as issues and the mechanisms for the resulting to such disorders and problems. In order to attain a comprehensive list of the patients issues the counsellor intends to evaluate the patient psychiatric as well as medical concerns along with any complexities related to the patient in order to attain and further make effective use of therapeutic measures for problems like noncompliance along with any complications related to the domains of interpersonal, occupational, educational economic, permissible or leisure functioning (Gordon and Hanley 2013).
In addition to this the therapist initiates the counselling procedure by translating diagnostic details into terms that would stimulate the conceptualisation and intervention from a cognitive behavioural perception. In order to obtain a problem list, operational approach of counselling seeks to collect information from various resources that involves the clinical interview constructive diagnostic interpersonal communication, self-report evaluation, self supervision data provided by the clients operations as well as the reports from the family members of the patients along with the other therapeutic providers (Broglia, Millings and Barkham 2017). It is significant to note that case level formulation monitors the treatment strategy by assisting the counsellors to co-ordinate all the therapeutic measures that clients are receiving despite of concentrating on contribution of individual therapists.
Assessment and Referral in Counselling Practice: History, Issues, and Nature of the Client’s Condition
The making of this is further supervised by treatment measures whereby the formulation denotes the mechanisms that results and preserve the clients symptoms on the way the therapist it utilise these information in order to strategize interventions that could facilitate in the production of the symptoms by further amending the mechanisms that motivate the symptoms (Malchiodi 2013). However it is it is significant to recognise that although both patients can experience symptoms of insomnia the formulation of each individual’s insomnia can vary and thus the therapeutic measure of each client insomnia disorder differs from the others.
Widening the accessibility of professional counselling
The precise numbers of professional counsellors or practitioners in recent times have been delivering person-centred or experiment to counselling and psychotherapy in Britain is not evaluated. Furthermore over the past decades have witnessed that person-centric diploma courses in Britain have been inducted around over 5000 PC /E practitioners whereby several have been continuing to be effectively participating in the practice course of counselling and psychotherapy (Kannan and Levitt 2013). However within the domain of the voluntary counselling images section of psychotherapist agencies in United Kingdom also provides expertise or generic psychotherapy training much of it is oriented around a fundamental person-centred framework of practice. However investment of these voluntary organisations in order to offer such training and counselling sessions have been generally considered to be short term such as within the time frame of 3 years whereby the long term sources of additional investments would be needed in order to increase the number of training places offered by these voluntary counselling institutions (Lilliengren et al. 2016).
Challenges related to professional counselling development
At this juncture it is significant to recognise, that there are certain therapeutic challenges that psychotherapists experience while dealing with alcohol and drug abused individuals all the ones who have been segregated as children. The concept of transference which is one of the obstacles faced while performing a counselling session refers to the emotions and complexities from the past that alliance or patients project on to the counsellors in the context of their current relationships (Moodley, Gielen and Wu 2013). However clients feelings related to themselves might hamper the relationships where buy the psychotherapists in order to develop their approach must gather sufficient awareness and be prepared for potential responses of this sort and must further operate in order to bring them to the clients attention to develop constructive discourses.
In addition to this issues related to clients suffering from chronic mental health disorders or severe substance abuse symptoms can result in creating obstacles in to the development of the professional approach of counselling (Bond 2011).. Such burnout events can influence several counsellors and can further create hindrances into the efficiency level of the professional approach of the psychotherapists. However such contacts can be considered as critical in the current economic centric care atmosphere that necessitates healthcare employees to anticipate greater or more critical case loads (Malan and Osimo 2014). As a result several professional treatment organisations have established in house support for therapists who deal with abuse and trauma survivors.
Conclusion
Therefore, from the above discussion it can be concluded that concept of counselling psychology has gained immense significance and recognition through the implications of several effective measures involved in the professional development of psychotherapists and counsellor. It has been effectively comprehended that person-driven or experimental process of counselling and psychotherapy has been identified as an empirically authorized form in association of psychological therapeutic measures comprising with a set of ideologies and morals that are immensely attuned with a recent Britain health outline. It has further been noted that the generalized person-centric therapeutic measures have been regarded as constructive as other psychosomatic or mental diagnoses for an array of psychological complexities and is further considered as the treatment of preference for a distinctive segment of clients.
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