Are we one profession or two (or more)? The Psychotherapy and Counselling Federation of Australia (PACFA) suggests a single profession composed of psychotherapists and counsellors. It states “The Psychotherapy and Counselling Federation of Australia (PACFA) is a leading national peak body for the counselling and psychotherapy profession [singular]” (PACFA, n.d.).
Gale (2024) disagreed with PACFA’s own statement and proposed that psychotherapy and counselling are actually distinct professions. However, I doubt even Gale would have been expecting the latest statement from PACFA’s official training standards, about to come into effect in 2025, which has now expanded the number of professions it hosts. In its most recent training standards, it states “… the professions [plural] of Psychotherapist, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Island Healing Practitioner, Creative and Experiential Therapist, and Relationship Counsellor” (PACFA, 2024, p. 9). The number of professions under the PACFA umbrella is rapidly expanding. The basis seems connected with the specialist Colleges.
PACFA is still showing some restraint, however. The identities of Supervisors (who also have their own College) and Mental Health Practitioners (who appear to be fading into obscurity) missed out on getting their own professions recognised. Perhaps next time.
A concern I have is that if PACFA keeps picking up professions, at some point these new professions may start demanding to be included in PACFA’s name. If PACFA were truly inclusive of all its professions, it should rename its acronym to its current listing – PCAATSIHPCAETRFA. Or shortened to PACFA+! Or rename PACFA the Multi-Profession Federation of Australia or MPFA.
Things are refreshingly simpler in the Australian Counselling Association. As its name implies, it represents only one profession – that of counselling. However, this is not entirely accurate. On its About page, it states “The Australian Counselling Association (ACA) … uphold[s] high standards in counselling and psychotherapy” (ACA, 2024). The draft National standards for counsellors and psychotherapists, created by Allen + Clarke Consulting (2024), do not differentiate between the two in the standards, naming them both in the document title, aligning with ACA’s view of one profession with two identities.
The Australian Registry of Counsellors & Psychotherapists (ARCAP which lists ACA and PACFA practitioners) lists only two identities in its name but includes a category for Mental Health Practitioners. Unlike Supervisors and the remaining ‘professions’ in the PACFA training standards, this group is recognised on the ARCAP register.
Ultimately, the question remains: Is there one profession with two identities, as ACA implies (and likewise PACFA did previously and currently), or an ever-growing number of professions as evidenced in PACFA’s most recent training standards?
This post is admittedly cheeky, and is poking fun at PACFA for what I suspect is merely a confusing wording and nothing more (and I suspect it will be amended after this post). I apologise if this blog post triggers outrage.
On a more serious note, however, I think as a profession we need to be consistent and maintain a single core identity aligned with the baseline training standards, which essentially are targeted at counsellor preparation in all the existing core training standards to date. I think the ACA (Australian or American version) title emphasising counselling without adding additional identities to the name, is the simplest and easiest to brand the profession to the public and other stakeholders. My opinion is that we should aim for a single professional identity baseline and be consistent with this in our terminology, similar to the psychology profession, while we can still recognise secondary specialist identities (Beel, 2024). However, I know that the UK has the British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy, listing one profession expressed as dual identities. And I fear I’ve missed the train on this in Australia by over two decades!
Hopefully, the Australian profession(s?) can achieve a unified position and terminology consistent across both peak bodies, particularly around what appears to be sub-identities. Otherwise, we risk confusing the public and other stakeholders. We also risk confusing ourselves and our own documentation, leading to mischievous blog posts such as this. Are we the counselling profession, the counselling and psychotherapy profession, or something else? I prefer the first, the overall evidence unfortunately suggests the second, and the wording of the latest training standards hints at something else altogether!
Beel, N. (2024). The Australian counselling profession in 2030: A counsellor / counsellor educator’s perspective. Psychotherapy and Counselling Journal of Australia, 12(1). https://doi.org/10.59158/001c.94532
Gale, J. (2024). Preserving the integrity of psychotherapy: Let’s not throw it under the bus. Psychotherapy and Counselling Journal of Australia, 12(1). https://doi.org/10.59158/001c.116673
PACFA. (2024). Accreditation standards for counselling programs (1.0 ed.). Psychotherapy and Counselling Federation of Australia.
(Pictures are from screenshots from the draft training standards)
If you are a member of the Psychotherapy and Counselling Federation of Australia, or the Australian Counselling Association, you will probably have heard about the development of the national standards for counsellors and psychotherapists. These are a result of the Department of Health and Aged Care funding of $300k for Allen + Clarke consulting, to develop minimum standards for the counselling profession.
The draft version was developed from extensive written submissions and interviews, with stakeholders including counsellors and psychotherapists, the two peak bodies, consumers, and other interested stakeholders.
At this time, the draft version is ready for public consultation. It will close on Friday 13 December 2024.
My analysis
In my view, the document is pretty sound. Given the extensive consultation that formed the background for the draft standards, informed mostly by counsellors and psychotherapists and various working groups in the profession, it is unsurprising that the document is not too different to standards and practices in both the Australian Counselling Association (ACA) and in the Psychotherapy and Counselling Federation of Australia (PACFA).
This said, as it is a draft, I wish to offer my recommendations, many of which are informed by colleagues who I have discussed the draft with.
Expectations without protections
The draft rightly highlights minimum expectations for counsellors and psychotherapists, to ensure that the public is both protected from harm and that the profession aligns with government regulatory practices. The background for the standards recognises the important role counsellors and psychotherapists have in supporting Australian mental health and wellbeing. It also attempts to address the inconsistency between the ACA and PACFA in terms of training standards, guidelines, and practice. The aims are to be supported. However, my first concern is that these standards may create an unequal playing field between those who are part of the profession and thus accountable to these standards, and those who practice as counsellors outside of the profession. Skipping to the final focus area 4.1.4 Removal from practice, it highlights that breaches of the standards may lead to a withdrawal of membership. This implies that these standards only apply to registered counsellors (and psychotherapists, but from now on, I’ll just say counsellors as inclusive of both groups), not unregistered counsellors. In other words, registered counsellors who play by the rules can be removed from practice, and unregistered counsellors do not have a mechanism in these standards to be censured for problematic practice.
In addition to the penalisation of only registered counsellors, it may also disincentivise untrained or even trained but unregistered counsellors from joining as members. Why train, why pay membership, why be compelled to pay for monthly supervision, why pay for annual CPD, and why risk your practice by being a member when you can be a counsellor for no cost or risk? It seems the people who play by the rules bear the costs, the expectations and the risks, while those who practice outside of associations don’t have the same risks or costs. And the public is none the wiser as to who are registered or not.
The standards need either apply to all people who identify as counsellors, members or not, or there needs to be special protected titles for those who are registered, such as Registered Counsellors, or Licenced Counsellors. This way, the public may be better able to discern who is registered with the profession of counselling compared with who is not.
Lower trained counsellors treated as equivalent to more thoroughly trained counsellors
The first focus area that needs reconsideration is on education. The screen shows four columns, each moving from lower levels to higher levels.
The foundational and qualified levels capture diploma, bachelor and Masters level trained counsellors. I see two key issues with listing diploma and degree levels, essentially, as equivalent career stages. Firstly, diploma qualifications, which can be completed in just 12 months, are considered equivalent to degree qualifications that require two to four years of study in terms of level of the lower levels of standing. Secondly, diploma graduates are required to complete fewer placement hours (100) than degree graduates (200 hours). Are lesser qualified, lower trained, and less experienced diploma students really on the same level as degree plus students with more experience? Are the graduates trained as paraprofessionals on the same professional level as those who have had professional training and experience?
To address these concerns, introducing a pre-foundational stage and labeling diploma graduates as “Associate Registered Counsellors” could provide a solution. This distinction would recognise the value of paraprofessionals in counselling, supported by research showing they can achieve equivalent results to professionals. By differentiating associate counsellors from registered counsellors, similar to the nursing profession’s enrolled compared with registered nurses, the counselling profession can enhance credibility and transparency.
This proposed change would have several benefits. It would provide diploma graduates with additional credibility over unregistered counsellors, while clearly communicating their qualifications to the public. It would also address concerns about the reputation of the counselling profession appearing underqualified compared to similar professions that require a minimum of four years of university study. Furthermore, recognising the role of associate counsellors would support Australia’s counselling workforce needs, rather than potentially excluding effective practitioners.
Did COVID never happen?
The draft standards have retained the obsession some have with misconceptions about the importance of face-to-face experience in the formation of counsellors. Placements do not mandate the type of issues, type of therapies, or whether they practice individual, couples, family, or group therapy formats. However, this set of draft standards targets and mandates face-to-face contact, even though the post COVID world has clearly now made other formats of practice delivered via technology, as recognised practice. Existing research on telehealth doesn’t support a face-to-face only-ist position for counsellors. While it finds that face-to-face differs from online and phone therapies, it generally finds equivalent outcomes, therapeutic relationship, and satisfaction for clients. It is not a second-rate practice, though the research indicates that therapists with less experience and knowledge about it, tend to hold incorrect assumptions and negative prejudices against it. Requiring face-to-face only for 80 hours disadvantages students who cannot travel to an agency to do face-to-face work (i.e. remote region students), or who may not intend to become face-to-face practitioners. I wrote an article where I explored relevant research and argued that this restriction is outdated and based on myths. See here. If they maintain the current position, can at least we treat teleconferenced sessions as face-to-face? While not all the body language can be seen, there’s still a lot of body language the counselling practicum student can hear and observe in the interactions. In fact, the proximity of this format of the faces to one another is more literally face-to-face than sitting in a room together a couple of metres apart.
Worried academics – be careful what you wish for?
Another area that might raise eyebrows is the recency of practice. I think this is better labelled Currency of Practice as one could have met the requirements three years ago and not done any practice for the last two years, but still be considered having practiced recently according to this focus area criteria.
From a counselling academic perspective, keeping practice currency can be tricky. While some training institutions make space in the workload, others do not. This can put pressure on academics who are often time poor, working nights and weekends to keep up with their academic workloads, let alone adding practice on top of this.
As an academic, I am not advocating this be dropped even while I know that some of my academic colleagues might oppose this. The first reason is that I believe it is important for academics to maintain currency of practice. I know myself, how fast I become clinically rusty when away from practice for a month or two. I have been practicing for over 25 years and yet I can sense the impact of lengthy breaks. Another reason for keeping it as is, is that having this expectation as a minimum becomes grounds for peak body training standards to require institutions give counsellor educators release for practice, which in turn, should make allowance for in their workloads. Institutions that wish to retain accreditation will need to comply. Giving academics opportunities to maintain practice currency will enable them to provide higher quality current practice experience to speak from, rather than historical experience alone. Should currency of practice be removed, it will disincentivise academics from maintaining it. Being stale and out of touch with practice will in my view, reduce the richness of student experience and lead to academics being out of touch with the realities of contemporary client work. Students often have told me how differently enriching their experience is when taught by practitioners compared to academics without currency of practice. As a practice-based profession, I think we really we need to practice what we teach.
With the CPD criteria proposed, I don’t want to specialise
A colleague recently brought to my attention an issue with the Continuing Professional Development (CPD) requirements. Specifically, specialists who have completed Master’s level training in their area of specialisation are expected to dedicate 20 hours of CPD to that same area, year in, year out. For instance, a specialist drug and alcohol counsellor might be required to focus their professional development exclusively on drug and alcohol-related topics.
This raises concerns for me, as it seems overly restrictive. Clients with specialised concerns, such as addictions, often present with interconnected issues spanning multiple areas, like trauma. By limiting PD options to a single specialisation, practitioners may miss out on valuable training opportunities. While critics of my position might say that I could always do additional CPD in other areas relevant for practice, I would reply that I don’t want to be penalised with a burden of having to do over and above anytime I want to learn something outside of my specialty area. Sorry, this seems like a penalty for being recognised as a specialist. And additionally, it assumes there will always be opportunities for CPD in specialist areas every year. This may not be the case.
Personally, I’m inclined to maintain my advanced status rather than pursue specialist registration, solely to preserve flexibility in my professional development choices.
I recommend revising the CPD requirement to mandate only fewer hours in the specialization area. This adjustment would prevent discouraging professionals from becoming registered specialists, avoiding unnecessary limitations on their PD options, or increased demands.
Avoidance or neglect for new counsellors – take your pick
In the standards, less experienced counsellors, including new graduates, don’t have to do individual supervision – at all. While this might save them money, as group supervision is often cheaper, I think this is a risk to the public. An inexperienced counsellor who may not have an opportunity in the group to talk about a difficult client issue that they need help for in the following session is problematic. Moreover, they may be less inclined to bring up more sensitive or embarrassing issues with a group compared to an individual supervisor who is there only for them in the supervision hour, with no witnesses. I have supervised many newly minted counsellors and I know how much individual support they need. I am horrified at this proposal and think it is highly risky.
Cheers for supervisor eligibility and private practice restrictions
and
One pleasing update was that foundational and qualified counsellors are unable to provide supervision. This is welcomed to prevent the inexperienced guiding the inexperienced.
There’s also a useful update about eligibility for private practice, wherein there is a recognition that private practice has complexities and risks some with lower qualifications may be less likely to recognise or manage. While there will be some lower qualified and experienced private practitioners who do a great job, these standards address a risk that still continues to this day.
One of the challenges and reasons many counsellors have been attracted to private practice is because the employment market has discriminated against counsellors, making counsellors needing to explore alternative opportunities to practice. I really hope the national standards help to enhance employer respect and willingness to hire counsellors. I appreciate the ACA and PACFA’s efforts to educate industry about what counsellors can do, and both to create Scope of Practice documents as part of this education.
Researching confusion
The focus area on research I found somewhat problematic. First, why is the label about undertaking research about the counselling and psychotherapy professions. Why do we need research on the profession as a minimum standard?? Can’t counsellors research other areas related to counselling too?
Also, the section appears to focus on the conducting of research. Firstly, diploma and bachelor students may have between nil and very little research training on average.
The second point I want to make is that rather than focusing on conducting research, shouldn’t require counsellors to be research literate? Very few practitioners will actually conduct and produce research, but all should be able to consume and understand research that might inform their practice. I agree with the importance of what is proposed. I just wonder about its relevance for the lower levels of trained counsellors who are unlikely to have had the relevant training to begin with, and unlikely to gain ethics approval if not having had sufficient research training.
Expert over or collaborate with
This is my last two areas for critique. 3.2.1 addresses promoting effective therapeutic relationship. First, we don’t promote the effective relationship, as stated in the focus area title. We don’t’ tell clients, “hey, I think you should really enter into a therapy relationship. It’s a really good thing”. No. Counsellors develop or facilitate it. Overall, though, I think this is an important focus area given the counselling profession, in my view, prizes the relationship.
The focus area 3.2.2 on applying theories and ideas in practice. It’s basically saying we should be theoretically informed. No disagreement here. However, the way it is written seems to exclude the client’s voice. In counselling, we do not impose theories or our ideas based on theories onto clients, but there is an interaction between client and counsellor knowledge. It isn’t a top-down expert over process about an interactional process of decision making.
Categorical confusion?
I’m not sure I understand how identifying and working with risks is directly and intrinsically related to discrimination. Focus area 2.1.3 is on respecting diversity, so I would have thought this area is of relevance to the discrimination category. However, I’m happy to be corrected. I just don’t see it at this time.
Conclusion
I’ve listed some of my concerns, not to diminish the perception of the quality of the standards overall, but to highlight some areas that might be worthwhile to reconsider. If you agree with some or all of my points, please use them in your feedback in the survey and share the link to this page with your fellow counsellors.
Google NotebookLM has provided its summary and below this is a podcast. It is not fully accurate, however, it generally reflects the literature included.
Deep Dive Podcast
These sources examine the counselling and psychotherapy profession in Australia, focusing on its current state, regulation, training, and future prospects. They discuss the challenges faced by the profession, such as a lack of recognition from the government, the need for greater unity and standardisation, and the need to adequately prepare practitioners for the modern marketplace. The sources also explore the different theoretical orientations used by therapists, the importance of supervision and continuing professional development, and the role of religious and spiritual beliefs in practice. Finally, the sources consider the future of the profession, highlighting the need for increased recognition and utilisation of counsellors and psychotherapists to meet the growing demand for mental health services.
Here is a detailed summary of the sources:
Counselling and Psychotherapy in Australia: A Diverse and Evolving Landscape: The sources explore the counselling and psychotherapy landscape in Australia, highlighting its diversity, regulatory challenges, and the ongoing pursuit of professional recognition.
Regulation and Professional Bodies: Sources discuss the regulation of counselling and psychotherapy in Australia, noting the challenges of a fragmented field with varying levels of training and accreditation.
Several sources emphasize the role of professional bodies like the Psychotherapy and Counselling Federation of Australia (PACFA) and the Australian Counselling Association (ACA) in advocating for self-regulation, setting training standards, and establishing codes of ethics.
Source focuses on employment trends, analyzing job vacancies in the community services sector, while source examines counsellor education and training in Australia, emphasizing the diverse pathways and the need for minimum training standards.
Source mentions ARCAP, a central registry intended to represent the counselling profession, but notes its limited visibility in job advertisements, suggesting a perception that peak bodies prioritize their own credibility over promoting the profession as a whole.
Workforce Characteristics and Scope of Practice: Sources provide insights into the demographics, training, and practice of counsellors and psychotherapists in Australia.
Many sources note the predominantly female workforce.
Source analyzes job advertisements on SEEK, revealing a high demand for counsellors with expertise in trauma, family violence, mental health, and alcohol and drugs.
Source discusses the lack of comprehensive demographic information on counsellors in Australia.
Source examines the efficacy of counselling delivered through employee assistance programs (EAPs), comparing satisfaction rates, conversion rates, and complaints for psychologists, social workers, and counsellors.
Training and Education: Sources explore the various pathways and challenges in counsellor training and education.
Several sources highlight the importance of course accreditation, clinical supervision, and personal therapy in ensuring the competence of practitioners.
Source examines the diversity of entry pathways and training options in Australia, suggesting that this complexity can make it difficult for prospective students to choose a program.
Source outlines the PACFA Training Standards, which emphasize the importance of theoretical knowledge, practical skills, and personal and professional development.
Theoretical Orientations and Integration: Sources discuss the theoretical orientations of Australian counsellors and psychotherapists.
Many sources note the prevalence of integrative and eclectic approaches, reflecting the field’s openness to drawing from various theoretical perspectives.
Source examines the effectiveness of counselling and psychotherapy, arguing that relational competence is more important than specific theoretical techniques.
Client Suitability and Gatekeeping: Sources focus on the issue of gatekeeping in counsellor training, specifically the identification and management of unsuitable trainees.
These sources highlight the importance of assessing personal suitability and professional competence to ensure that graduates are fit to practice.
Religious and Spiritual Beliefs: Sources examine the religious and spiritual beliefs of Australian therapists and their potential influence on practice.
Source reports that a significant proportion of therapists were raised in a Christian faith tradition, and while outward religious affiliation may have declined, spirituality and personal beliefs can still impact therapeutic approaches.
Overall, the sources paint a comprehensive picture of the Australian counselling and psychotherapy landscape, emphasizing the field’s diversity, regulatory complexities, commitment to professional development, and the ongoing pursuit of providing safe and effective services to the Australian public.
Written 2020. Please note PACFA’s training standards are regularly updated so view this paper as talking to a historical point in time.
Abstract
Biases within higher education may restrict opportunities for counsellors to teach counselling. While the counselling profession has provided training and accreditation standards that deliver common educational requirements for shaping counselling trainees, they may not do enough to ensure qualified counsellors are sufficiently represented as counselling educators. It is possible that some counselling students are graduating without being taught by any qualified counsellors. This article argues that counsellor education is more than transmitting counselling skills and knowledge, but importantly, develops a professional identity and connection with the counselling profession and its values. The profession’s accreditation guidelines implicitly treat qualified counsellors as optional for staffing counselling courses and enables higher education providers to prioritise employing staff from occupations deemed similar. I argue that the counselling profession must ensure it more clearly supports the hiring of registered and qualified counsellors as academics teaching and coordinating accredited counselling courses and meaningfully safeguards the inculcation of the profession’s values in counsellor training. Otherwise, the future of the counselling profession itself may be shaped in alignment with the values of other professions, as members of ‘equivalent’ professions’ gatekeep and mould those entering the counselling profession.
Introduction
Counsellors[1] in Australia have experienced discriminatory practices throughout the profession’s short history. Counsellors are all too familiar with adverts seeking to hire counsellors, only to find that they are ineligible to apply because they are not a psychologist or social worker. This ironically has extended into university student counselling services where counselling degrees are offered (O’Hara & O’Hara, 2015). While recognition of the profession of counselling has been improving over time, professional discrimination may still be occurring. An implicit devaluing of qualified counsellors[2] as underqualified for teaching their own students may happen in some training courses designed to prepare future counsellors for the profession and is enabled by over-inclusiveness in PACFA (and ACA) course accreditation guidelines.
A minority in teaching counselling
In 2018, a colleague and I reviewed the websites of eight counsellor training provider courses in Australia as part of an internal benchmarking exercise. We found that most staff who taught counselling subjects by these providers were not registered counsellors within the counselling profession, but were mostly psychologists, followed by social workers and teaching staff not visibly registered with any profession. A year later, I searched the staffing profiles of four universities who offered accredited training programs and this time checked registration status from professional registries (e.g., Australian Register of Counsellors and Psychotherapists (ARCAP), Australian Association of Social Workers (AASW), etc.). Two had no Counsellor Educators (i.e., qualified members of the counselling profession who teach into counselling courses), and the remaining two had a maximum of one continuing Counsellor Educator in the teaching teams. Of these four universities, Counsellor Educators were either the minority or entirely absent from the teaching teams. Again, most who taught counselling were psychologists. While the sample is too small to generalise, it raised questions for me about how it is possible that counsellors could be underrepresented or absent within the counselling discipline.
If the samples echo a more widespread lack of Counsellor Educators in higher education, it may partly reflect the relative recency of counselling’s emergence as a profession in Australia. The momentum for professionalising and consolidating counselling began with the establishment of PACFA in 1998 (Schofield, 2015) making it a very young profession in comparison to psychology (1944) (APS, 2020) and social work (1946) (Miller, 2016). Since this time, counselling training programs have proliferated both in private institutions and public universities, but I have not seen evidence of this demand translate into a significant number of applications by counsellors for counselling lecturer positions. The demand for counselling education appears to be much higher than the supply of suitably qualified and experienced Counselling Educators.
The counselling profession may not yet have a sufficient supply of Counselling Educators and thus may continue to rely on Educators of Counselling (i.e., educators from other professions who teach counselling) to fill the gaps. Even so, there are barriers in the education market that favour Educators of Counselling over Counselling Educators. Counsellor Educators are competing against a larger pool of similar professionals who typically have more extensive research and teaching backgrounds, hold doctorates, have more substantial research track records, are members of higher status professions, and can teach across disciplines in professionally accredited programs. Besides this, they often have extensive practice experience. In the interviews for Counselling Lecturer positions I have been involved with over the past 12 years, similar professionals outperform Counsellor Educators on most of the criteria. While counsellor applicants might outperform on possessing relevant membership, they lag behind with the level of qualifications, and experience in teaching, research, and even therapy practice experience. It is not an equal playing field for Counselling Educators, and unfortunately, those trained and qualified as counsellors may be on the losing side even in their own discipline area.
In the table below, I demonstrate the differential trends I have seen in applicants for counselling lecturer positions. If this reflects a broader trend, it is understandable if counsellors miss out on such appointments.
Value
Counsellors/Psychotherapists
Psychologists
Educational attainment
Masters qualified
PhD qualified
Research experience
Very limited (if any) publications
More publications
Number of applicants
Estimated average 10-20%
Estimated average 80-90%
Clinical experience
Yes
Yes
Clinical supervision
Can supervise only counselling students
Can supervise counselling and psychology students
Teaching experience
Often limited to professional development or internal training
Often experienced in teaching in higher education
Administrative functions
May not have high confidence administratively
Often excel in administration
Team skills and communication
Often highly skilled and have warm and friendly interview presence
Often have a more professional persona and communication approach
Diversity of expertise
Therapy, supervision, and some management experience. Experience in private practice, education and human services organisations.
Therapy, supervision, psychological testing, research supervision. Experience in private practice, human services, health, and education settings.
There are additional factors that influence how committed a tertiary institution may be in hiring Counsellor Educators. These include whether counselling is in a department with an ‘overlapping’ profession or not, how much the Head of Department supports the counselling discipline’s boundaries in teaching and hiring decisions, the professional composition of the staffing profile of the department, including its leadership[3]; and how much the organisation or department is focussed on strengthening its research profile.
My perception is that over time, Counselling Educators in continuing positions are numerically shrinking rather than growing. If this perception is accurate, I propose three key reasons. The first is that universities are generally showing less tolerance for hiring people without doctorates. The second is that when the counselling discipline is co-located with other similar higher status professions with more prescriptive accreditation requirements, staff appointments will be biased towards the dominant profession’s staffing profile. The imbalance of the staffing profile may reinforce perceptions of counselling’s sub-ordinance within the staffing structure (and to the student body) and diminish the counsellor influence in their own domain. The third reason is that the counselling profession’s existing accreditation requirements have enabled a type of interprofessional colonising of counsellor education by remaining relatively neutral and thus failing to compensate for an unequal playing field.
The contribution of counsellor training standards
In my view, PACFA’s training standards provide insufficient incentive to hire qualified counsellors or to address this potential inequity. PACFA’s training standards allow the selection of staff based on program needs with respect to staff experience or qualifications. For those overseeing the programs, they “… must be psychotherapists/counsellors or professionals from a related discipline… who are eligible for clinical or full membership of the professional body relevant to their qualification” (emphasis added) (PACFA, 2018b, p. 5). Of eight criteria for course coordinators in PACFA’s Training Standards, none address identity or knowledge of the counselling profession.
PACFA has second document called the Course Accreditation and Application Guidelines 2018 (PACFA, 2018a). This document requires core staff to hold “relevant degrees… preferably from PACFA accredited programs… or…a closely related field” (p.8). It additionally requires core staff to “identify with the counselling or psychotherapy profession through memberships and involvement in appropriate professional organisations (i.e. PACFA or PACFA Member Association)” (PACFA, 2018a, p. 8).
While PACFA’s wording in parts signals a preference for Counsellor Educators, the wording fails to safeguard against counsellors being excluded from counselling discipline staffing profiles. PACFA does not require teachers of counselling to have any affiliation, knowledge about, or experience with the counselling profession. Also, by treating alternative professionals as equivalent, the training standards imply that the hiring of Qualified Counsellors is ‘optional’. Staffing managers higher up in faculties may have little understanding or empathy for safeguarding distinctions between professions. Why should they hire lesser qualified ‘optionals’ instead of more qualified, experienced, versatile and research productive ‘equivalents’? The profession’s current suitability criteria, undoubtedly unintentionally, enables the exclusion of Counsellor Educators.
Compare this with alternative professions with evidence of more substantial protectiveness and regard for their own members’ professional identity, allegiance, expertise and relevance in the educational processes. The profession of Social Work mandates that a minimum of 50% of lecturers have social work qualifications (Australian Association of Social Workers, 2012). The profession of psychology requires qualified psychologists to teach psychology with an onus on the provider to justify alternative appointments (Australian Psychology Accreditation Council, 2019). These guidelines do not prevent receiving training contributions from suitably qualified professionals but influence training providers to prioritise the respective professionals in hiring. Both these professions have a stronger professional identity and higher professional status than counselling and ensure their members are prioritised in teaching appointments.
Interrogating equivalence
The second implication in the PACFA’s 2018 training standards wording is the assumption of equivalence. The counselling profession has historically struggled to form a clear collective identity that differentiates itself from other professions (Alves & Gazzola, 2011). Yet the formation of a counsellor and their professional identity is important both at a broader profession level and an individual level. One of the essential roles of Counsellor Educators and Educators of Counselling is to help counselling students develop a strong sense of counsellor identity, delineate its distinctiveness from other professions, and understand its core philosophical values. Doing so will help students gain a connection with, and pride and optimism about their profession (Woo et al., 2014). As part of developing their professional identity, “…students [should] develop a set of attitudes, perspectives, and personal commitment to the standards, ideals, and identity of the counseling profession” (Choate et al., 2005, p. 384). PACFA’s accreditation guidelines reinforce the importance of the developing professional identity, stating “All staff… will be clearly committed to preparing professional counsellors and psychotherapists and promoting the development of the student’s professional identity” (PACFA, 2018a, p. 8).
Education into membership of professions requires acculturation into the profession’s identity (Tan et al., 2017), and students’ values and attitudes are shaped by role models who they equate with their chosen profession (Day et al., 2005). Can educators who have been trained, socialised, and hold primary allegiance to different professions, paradigms and identities adequately prepare students to enter the counselling profession and infuse its values? Can educators who have no membership or participation in the counselling profession sufficiently understand the profession they are preparing students for? While those outside the counselling profession can contribute valuable expertise from which to teach theories, skills, ethics, and research, they are likely to unconsciously (or consciously) and pervasively reflect their own professional identities and associated values. Denying students’ ongoing access to counsellor role models through their training is likely to add to the challenge of developing a clear professional identity (Woo et al., 2014). The international peak body, the Accreditation of Counseling and Related Educational Programs (CACREP) recognised the importance of staff alignment, and now requires all core counsellor teaching staff to demonstrate identification, via membership and ongoing commitment to the counselling profession and discipline as minimum requirements (CACREP, 2019).
The questioning of equivalence is not intended to devalue the contributions and expertise interdisciplinary staff make into counselling programs, but to underscore the importance of utilising qualified Counsellor Educators in transmitting the values and traditions of the counselling profession. The critical numerical balance and the leadership roles in counsellor programs should favour members of the profession the students are being prepared for. Educators of Counselling not only train, but may arguably (and understandably) influence students towards their own professional values; just as they were appropriately influenced by the discourses of the profession they maintain an allegiance with. Exposure to Educators of Counselling is not problematic if it simply reflects a healthy exposure to interprofessional diversity of which counselling students should be exposed to. However if, for argument’s sake, psychologists make up the majority of those socialising counselling students without an adequate understanding of inter-professional differences in values, traditions, training approaches, and professional allegiance; could this ultimately lead to the dilution, replacing, and ‘psychologising’ of core counselling values over time within the profession itself?
The isolating of counsellor educators
Another issue that can emerge with a disproportionate weighting of Educators of Counselling is that Counselling Educators can be professionally isolated and be a minority in the staff teaching counselling courses. While Counsellor Educators may have strong collegiality with peers from other professions, if they are the only one, or one of a minority number, professional isolation and a reservation about speaking freely within their context may occur. If there is democratic decision-making in counsellor course decisions, the minority number of Counsellor Educators may be outvoted by the Educators of Counselling who may have little understanding or commitment to the counselling profession’s values and culture. There is a potential that the Counsellor Educator defaults to a role of monitor, guardian, discipline advocate, and staff educator about principles associated more closely with the counselling profession. They also occupy a position of being approached by students asking why most of their lecturers are not counsellors but belong to alternative professions. For institutions whereby counselling is taught alongside other disciplines, new continuing staff can be employed to meet the needs of the higher status and/or more restrictive disciplines, and counselling gaps filled with available existing staff (given that they can be taught by an ‘equivalent’ clinician) rather than staff specifically employed to contribute to the counselling course/s. Job applicants may also apply for Counselling Lecturer roles as a less competitive entry point from which to progress sideways back to their own discipline when the opportunity arises, while potential Counsellor Educators may be turned off applying for positions in universities where they see counsellor underrepresentation in the staffing profile. All these factors can affect the morale of Counsellor Educators as they find themselves minorities in their own discipline.
The influence of training standards
The current training guidelines currently enable those outside the profession to determine the professional makeup of those who train counsellors. In addition, non-members of the counselling profession also select and prepare students for entry into the counselling profession. In my opinion, the existing standards show insufficient concern for safeguarding the counselling profession’s disciplinary boundaries and identity when it comes to training. The counselling profession needs to ensure they are advocating first and foremost for the profession, its quality, its reputation, and the interests of its members; and training standards should adequately reflect this in all areas, including staffing. Universities are becoming more accustomed to practice-based professions like counselling (such as nursing, paramedicine, etc.) that produce relatively low numbers of academics from their graduates. Universities will hire and mentor staff without doctorates and research if required by professional training standards to hire from within a specified profession.
The authority to prioritise staff appointments of less experienced academics in the presence of stronger competition often does not come from the Course Leaders overseeing the programs but the professional training accreditation requirements. Course Leaders presently have no authoritative grounds within accreditation requirements to insist on advertising exclusively for, or for prioritising Counselling Educator appointments. Their recommendations to hire Counsellor Educators can be dismissed by Heads of Departments or faculties, who insist on the more qualified equivalents. While accreditation standards are what Course Leaders rely on to ensure the institution maintains appropriate quality in counsellor education, when it comes to staffing, these same standards undermine their efforts to prioritise hiring Counsellor Educators. If the profession’s guidelines do not prioritise Counsellor Educators, why should universities prioritise hiring them?
Until the guidelines are amended, Counselling Educators are likely to be limited mainly to sessional teaching appointments, particularly if Heads of Departments want to rationalise teaching staff to teach across complementary disciplines. Likewise, counselling applicants who do not possess PhDs, lack experience with teaching in higher education settings, cannot teach and supervise across disciplines and do not hold track records of research; or are not prepared to juggle the demands of a part-time practice with being a full-time academic, may also be disadvantaged.
Recommendations
It is understandable that the counselling profession would not set too stringent staffing requirements for such a young profession. Doing so would starve itself of academics (and potentially accredited courses) who can keep a steady pipeline of counsellors entering the profession from the higher education sector. However, at some point, a change of strategy is needed lest the existing standards contribute to starving the profession of its own identity and its own practitioners becoming excluded from teaching counselling in higher education. The concerns about the varying costs of too heavily relying on Educators of Counselling and the restricted opportunities for Qualified Counsellors to become academics, raise questions about what can be done to increase Counsellor Educator presence and influence in the teaching of counselling Courses. Available options should be considered in light of the profession’s priorities, the available supply of Counsellor Educators, the risks of institutions abandoning accreditation, and other less obvious and foreseeable impacts that such changes might bring. The choice, timing and strength of interventions also need to be considered.
There are several options available in relation to the issues posed in this paper. The first might be for PACFA’s research committee to commission a study of the professional staffing profile of PACFA-accredited Australia counselling courses. This would provide data from which to identify if a problem of significance does exist. A second might be that PACFA’s training standards more clearly prioritise the hiring of Counsellor Educators. For core staff, this might be by requiring institutions provide evidence of a commitment to meeting minimum quotas of Counsellor Educators. This would shift Counsellor Educators from being optional to being closer to an inherent requirement for staffing profiles. An alternative to quotas might be to ask new and renewal accreditation applicants to demonstrate how the course ensures students are appropriately socialised into the counselling profession. How does it ensure students have access to counsellors as role models throughout their studies? How does it ensure its staff are sufficiently familiar with the counselling profession and its values so they can align their teaching accordingly? How does it ensure the course leadership have sufficient understanding, commitment[4], and connection with the counselling profession whereby decisions are congruent with what is valued by the profession? For those with a strong staffing profile of Counsellor Educators, these will be more easily demonstrated. For others who do not meet some of these, they might be required to include a strategic plan to address shortcomings along with their accreditation application.
Academic staff and leaders can also play a part in stimulating the pipeline of future Counsellor Educators. At the higher education institution I work, the leadership team ensured that the research project in our Master of Counselling was substantive enough to enable entry into our PhD programs. We encourage students to think about a career in higher education and highlight the scarcity (and importance) of PhD holding Counsellor Educators, whilst also promoting research and academic careers as achievable and rewarding. Staff encourage individual students who demonstrate suitability, to consider PhDs and other opportunities for engagement with scholarly activity. With academic pathway students, we explain the need to develop as an experienced practitioner over time. We encourage the students to be on the doctoral journey simultaneously as developing experience as therapists.
Conclusion
This paper raised concerns that there is some evidence to suggest Counsellor Educators may be sidelined in favour of recruiting educators from other professions. It calls for increased strategic support for prioritising the hiring of Counsellor Educators (including psychotherapists), both for the interests of the profession’s members they represent, and also the interests of maintaining the profession’s distinctiveness and identity throughout the training offered to counselling students. It noted potential strategies that could prioritise Counsellor Educators in the hiring decisions for teaching staff, and of building the supply of future Counsellor Educators.
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A special thanks to the PACFA members who kindly provided valuable feedback and suggestions on drafts. Note: The views expressed in this article are the author’s alone, and not representative of his professional affiliations.
[1] While this article specifically references counsellors, it applies to psychotherapists where relevant.
[2] The term qualified counsellor is used to identify those who have training and experience that make them eligible for ARCAP (Australian Register of Counsellors and Psychotherapists) registration. The term Registered Counsellor refers to those listed on ARCAP.
[3] In August 2019 I read a position description for a Counselling Head in a private college that provides PACFA and ACA accredited degrees. The first criteria stated: “Registration as a psychologist in Australia required”. The provider did not offer psychology degrees so having this requirement appeared unjustifiably professionally discriminatory to those in the counselling profession. The outgoing Counselling Head was a psychologist.
[4] Currently there are eight guidelines for Course Coordinators overseeing counselling courses (PACFA, 2018b). In these, there are no requirements of any knowledge of, or connection with the counselling profession. The professional identity, commitment, and knowledge appears irrelevant.
