Conceptions of Counselling and Psychotherapy: Towards Professional Self-Clarification

In 2023, the Australian Government, after many sponsored reviews of counselling and psychotherapy, announced its intention to establish a review of the national standards for counselling and psychotherapy. This welcome development signals the government’s intention to clarify the professional standing of counselling and psychotherapy as a profession within the Australian social and health system. Identifying professional standards of any profession assumes that the profession is clear about its own standards—that is, it can identify its own body of knowledge, skills, processes, ethical framework, and scope of practice. Currently, Australia does not have a single, agreed-upon set of national standards. This is in large part due to two main factors: one, the existence of several counselling associations, each holding different perceptions of the profession; and two, a lack of agreement within the counselling and psychotherapy workforce. This situation indicates that the profession has some distance to travel before it gains full confidence in its own identity as a health profession. Arriving at a commonly held view of what counselling is as a profession as opposed to simply a practice is a pressing need if counselling is to establish its rightful place alongside other established helping professions. The following discussion explores different perceptions of how the profession of counselling and psychotherapy understands itself.