Trainee Counselling Psychologists’ Experiences of Working with Clients from Different Ethnic/Religious Backgrounds to Themselves

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Abstract

Background and objectives: Despite the large amount of research around counselling psychology and working with culture, ethnicity and religion, literature has mainly focused on clients’ experiences of therapy. We know little about trainee counselling psychologists and how they experience working with clients from different ethnic and/or religious backgrounds. The objective of this study was therefore to explore UK-based trainee counselling psychologists and their experiences of working with clients from different backgrounds and to also explore educational implications trainee counselling psychologists identify when working with clients from different backgrounds. Therefore, following the aim of this study the two research questions, which will be, explored area as follows: 1. How do trainee counsellingpsychologists experience working with clients from different ethnic/religious backgrounds? and 2. What educational implications are identified by trainee counselling psychologists when working with clients from different ethnic/religious backgrounds to themselves? Method and analyses: A qualitative design was used within project. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with twelve UK-based trainee counselling psychologists who had experiences of working with clients from different ethnic/religious backgrounds. A systematic review of the literature was conducted in order to inform the research and to also produce a coding template, which was used to analyse the findings of this thesis. The interview material was analysed using thematic analysis. Analysis: The findings from the first research question revealed eight major themes, which were extracted from the coding template, these themes included: challenges, exploration, relationship, client’s perspective, appropriateness, competency, sense of self and emotional responses. These eight major themes were extracted via the coding template and expanded further as the interviews were analysed. The interviews provided a richer understanding ofthese themes and they are introduced and outlined in depth in turn. Following the first researchquestion, the second research question concentrates on educational implications identified by trainee counselling psychologists. These findings yielded a total of four main themes, which included: course input, practical experience, personal experience and reflectivity. These themes are also outlined and explored further in the discussion of this thesis. Conclusions: The research enabled, for the first time, an insight into trainee counselling psychologists’ reported experiences of working with clients therapeutically who were from different ethnic/religious backgrounds. Some trainee counselling psychologists reported that rather than working with clients from different backgrounds, working with clients from similar backgrounds posed to be quite difficult as well. More importantly, the idea of reflectivity and personal growth were key elements identified when working with differences in therapy. Trainees expressed that their own sense of self and personal development were key factors when working with clients from different backgrounds. The Discussion of this thesis further expanded on the findings relevant in this thesis. Finally, the Conclusion explored the implications for counselling psychology and education, additionally future considerations for research are also mentioned.

Keyword(s)

Counselling, Psychology, Ethnicity, Religion, Experiences, Qualitative, Therapy ; Therapeutic Relationship, Education

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