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A growing field of
outdoor and adventure
therapy practices
connects individuals
to the healing... more
A growing field of
outdoor and adventure
therapy practices
connects individuals
to the healing benefits
of nature. But are we
doing enough inside
the therapy room to
address the impact of
environmental issues on
mental health?
The Evaluation of the Major Characteristics and Aspects of the Procrastination in the Framework of Psychological Counseling and Guidance
by Halil Eksi
Murat BALKIS, Erdinç DURU
Educational Sciences: Theory & Practice
7 (1) • January 2007 • 376-385
It is important to understand causes and consequences of procrastination that is appeared
common among general... more
It is important to understand causes and consequences of procrastination that is appeared
common among general and academic population. Procrastination affects people
in various domains of life such as academic, professional, social relationships,
and finance management. A person with high procrastination may lose his/her work,
drop out from school, or may endanger his/her marital life. Similarly, High procrastinators
might increasingly experience psychological distress related to lack of sense
of personal control, self- worth and lack of sense of self-perceived personal ability as
deadlines approach. The purpose of this study presents theoretical and conceptual
frames of procrastination that is an important variable of individual difference and
common in general and academic population.
Download (.pdf) Resisting Categorisation: An" Ordinary" Mother.
co authored with Helena Austin. Published in Australian Research In Applied Linguistics.
In this paper we use Membership Category Analysis to examine the way an interviewee utilizes category work in order to... more In this paper we use Membership Category Analysis to examine the way an interviewee utilizes category work in order to resist the possible accusation of being a bad mother and instead posit her mothering as ordinary. Through our analysis we explore the interactional work of ascribing and resisting categorization organised through claims and counter-claims, making procedures routinely grounded in descriptions and accounts, and embedded in shifts between individual and categorial actions.
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Training and disillusion in Counselling Psychology: A psychoanalytic perspective
Psychology and Psychotherapy: Theory, Research and Practice (2006), 79, 613–627
In this paper, I argue* that Counselling Psychology’s professional identification with pluralism poses significant... more
In this paper, I argue* that Counselling Psychology’s professional identification with pluralism poses significant emotional problems for trainees. An important factor in such problems may be the trainee’s sense of disappointment and disillusion that the route to
professional and personal self-transformation will not be achieved via a set of universal theoretical principles and established clinical ‘rules’. I draw on recent psychoanalytic theory to suggest that the task facing trainees involves balancing pluralism, characterized as an ‘external’ third position, with an ‘internal’ third space indexing an awareness of subjectivity and intersubjectivity. Maintaining a dialogical-dialectical perspective on these two positions allows for a creative space in which the trainee may
be transformed from lay helper into professional counselling psychologist via a personal engagement with theoretical, clinical and academic material presented during training.
'If that's what I need, it could be what someone else needs.'Exploring the role of attachment and reflective function in counselling psychologists' accounts of how they …
Rizq, R. and Target, M. (2010) British Journal of Guidance & Counselling, Vol. 38, No. 4:459- 481.
Empirical evidence supporting the inclusion of mandatory training therapy for therapists is sparse. We present results... more
Empirical evidence supporting the inclusion of mandatory training therapy for therapists is sparse. We present results from a mixed methods study designed to interrogate how counselling psychologists’ attachment status and levels of reflective function (RF) intersect with how they experience, recall and describe using personal therapy in clinical practice. Results suggest that securely-attached,or earned secure participants with ordinary or marked levels of RF used their therapy to manage feelings evoked by difficult or challenging clients. Insecurely attached participants with lower levels of RF found therapy valuable in terms of behavioural modelling, but not in managing complex process issues. Negative case analysis found that high levels of RF may not be uniformly advantageous for therapists. The study concludes with a brief discussion of issues relating to
epistemology, validity and reflexivity.
Tread softly: counselling psychology and neuroscience
Counselling Psychology Review, Vol. 22, No. 4, November 2007
Advances in the fields of neurobiology, cognitive neuroscience and behaviour genetics pose a significant philosophical... more
Advances in the fields of neurobiology, cognitive neuroscience and behaviour genetics pose a significant philosophical and epistemological challenge to the models of mind and psychotherapeutic practice advocated by counselling psychology. Drawing on contemporary work within psychoanalysis, however, I argue that a marriage of neuroscientific and psychotherapeutic research is not only possible but necessary. This paper discusses current research in the fields of memory, mental state understanding and behavioural genetics and examines some of the inherent methodological and conceptual problems facing interdisciplinary research within counselling psychology. The paper concludes with a brief discussion about the ways in which counselling psychology may be well-placed to contribute to a psychotherapeutically-informed
neuroscience.
Ripley's Game: Projective identification, emotional engagement, and the counselling psychologist
Psychology and Psychotherapy: Theory, Research and Practice (2005), 78, 449–464
Counselling psychology’s dual emphasis on the use of the self as both vehicle of therapeutic change and legitimate... more
Counselling psychology’s dual emphasis on the use of the self as both vehicle of therapeutic change and legitimate focus of inquiry and research is one of the features by which the profession may be distinguished from related fields such as clinical psychology
or psychotherapy. This paper discusses the relevance of the psychoanalytic concept of projective identification in understanding the extent, nature and subtlety of the ways in
which the therapist’s ‘self’ and emotions may be deployed within the therapeutic relationship. Illustrated with reference to the film ‘Ripley’s Game’ and a clinical case vignette, Searles’s (1978) advocacy of ‘a richness of emotional participation’ within
clinical work is discussed in relation to the pluralist philosophy of counselling psychology; implications for the training and personal development of counselling psychologists are also briefly explored.
Psychoanalysis revisited
Counselling Psychology Review, Vol. 23, No. 1, February 2008
In its explicit aim of bringing together both psychology and psychotherapy, the Register of Psychologists Specialising... more
In its explicit aim of bringing together both psychology and psychotherapy, the Register of Psychologists Specialising in Psychotherapy provides us with an opportunity to examine what has often seemed to be a extraordinarily fraught relationship between psychology and psychoanalysis. This paper briefly explores the history of that interdisciplinary divide, and examines how recent developments, particularly in post-modern
psychological thinking, have influenced the development of relational models of psychoanalysis that may permit a more meaningful and constructive dialogue between the two fields.
Not a little Mickey Mouse thing: How experienced counselling psychologists describe the significance of personal therapy in clinical practice and training. Some …
Rizq and Target (2008) Counselling Psychology Quarterly 21(1): 29–48
The British Psychological Society’s Division of Counselling Psychology currently specifies a mandatory period of... more The British Psychological Society’s Division of Counselling Psychology currently specifies a mandatory period of personal therapy for trainees. However, evidence for the role of personal therapy in developing practitioner competence is sparse. This paper presents part of a wider ongoing interpretative phenomenological analysis exploring how counselling psychologists describe the meaning and significance of personal therapy in clinical practice and training. Detailed examination of a subset of data from this study suggests that personal therapy is valued as a vehicle for a genuine, often extremely intense relationship with the therapist, through which participants become able to establish authentic emotional contact with themselves and their clients. Whilst most participants felt that personal therapy should remain an obligatory part of the training curriculum, they were ambivalent about specifying its aims or evaluating its outcomes. Results are discussed in terms of the importance of establishing a sense of integrity and authenticity within the personal therapy experience and are tentatively situated within a possible theoretical framework drawing on current developmental literature.
On the margins: a psychoanalytic perspective on the location of counselling, psychotherapy and counselling psychology programmes within universities
British Journal of Guidance & Counselling, Vol. 35, No. 3, August 2007.
Despite the continuing expansion of psychotherapeutic training programmes within universities in the UK, very little... more Despite the continuing expansion of psychotherapeutic training programmes within universities in the UK, very little has been written about the psychological strains which may be experienced by teams working within the context of higher education. This theoretical paper offers a psychoanalytic perspective on the location of such teams, drawing on Kleinian conceptualisations of anxiety and projective identification, as well as Menzies-Lyth’s concept of social defence systems. The paper explores the way in which psychotherapeutic teams in general and counselling psychology teams in particular may be at risk of becoming the locus of unconsciously split-off emotional aspects of the institution. The role of such teaching teams within universities is discussed and brief suggestions for future practice outlined.
We had a constant battle. The role of attachment status in counselling psychologists' experiences of personal therapy: Some results from a mixed-methods study
Rizq and Target (2010) Counselling Psychology Quarterly Vol. 23, No. 4, 343–369
There has been curiously little empirical investigation into the experiences of psychotherapeutic practitioners... more There has been curiously little empirical investigation into the experiences of psychotherapeutic practitioners undertaking a mandatory training therapy. We present results from a qualitatively-driven mixed-methods study designed to explore the way in which counselling psychologists’ attachment status and levels of reflective function intersect with how they experience the therapeutic relationship within their personal therapy. Participants were interviewed twice: once using Main and Goldwyn’s (1998) Adult Attachment Interview (AAI) to explore representations of early childhood relationships; and subsequently using a semi-structured interview format, analysed via Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA), to explore experiences of personal therapy. Meshing results from both sets of data showed that insecurely-attached participants experienced their personal therapy differently from secure or earned-secure participants, and were more troubled by a perceived disparity of institutional and interpersonal power within the therapeutic relationship. Results are considered in terms of the power dynamics within training therapy. Implications for training and future research in this neglected field are briefly discussed.
The power of being seen
Co-authored with Mary Target. Published in British Journal of Guidance and Counselling (2008)
There is a widely acknowledged lack of clarity in psychotherapeutic training about the role of personal therapy in... more
There is a widely acknowledged lack of clarity in psychotherapeutic training about the role of personal therapy in developing practitioner competence. This paper presents part of a wider ongoing qualitative study exploring the role that personal therapy plays in the clinical practice and training of experienced counselling psychologists. Results derived from an interpretative phenomenological analysis suggest that personal therapy is valued mainly as a means of enhancing reflectiveness within clinical work. Detailed examination of a subset of
the data offers scope for exploring how this process may occur within therapy, and points to the potential significance of early attachment experiences in the development and amplification of participants’ reflective capacities. A possible theoretical framework is proposed and implications for future research discussed.
Psychometric Properties of the Satisfaction with Life Scale among Turkish University Students, Correctional Officers, and Elderly Adults
by Mithat Durak
Key Words: Satisfaction with Life Scale, SWLS, university students, elderly, correctional officers, confirmatory factor analysis, reliability, concurrent validity, discriminant validity, multi-group comparison
This study aims to extensively examine the psychometric properties of adapted version of the Satisfaction with Life... more This study aims to extensively examine the psychometric properties of adapted version of the Satisfaction with Life Scale (SWLS) in different Turkish samples. In order to test the psychometric properties of the SWLS three separate and independent samples are utilized in this study, namely university students (n = 547), correctional officers (n = 166), and elderly adults (n = 123). Concerning the reliability of the scale, internal consistency and item-total correlation coefficients are found to be satisfactory for all three samples. As for the validity studies, concurrent validity of the scale is supported in all three samples by revealing the association of SWLS with conceptually related measures, which included depression, self-esteem, positive affect and negative affect, work stress, and monthly income measures. Discriminant validity is examined only in the sample of university students, and SWLS revealed a non-significant correlation with a conceptually unrelated construct (i.e., willingness to self-censor). Consistent with the original scale, a single-factor solution model reveals an adequate fit in all three different samples. Furthermore, confirmatory factor analysis with multi-group comparisons performed demonstrates that SWLS has the same theoretical structure for three different groups on the basis of a single-factor solution model. The theoretical and practical implications of this study are discussed.
Holding the tension: Relational perspectives in counselling psychology practice
Holding the tension: Relational perspectives in counselling psychology practice. Psychology Aotearoa, Nov 2011
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The Development of Counselling Psychology in a Clinical Psychology Service
Milton, M. (1995) The Development of Counselling Psychology in a Clinical Psychology Service, Counselling Psychology Quarterly, V8 (3). 243-247
Counselling Psychology’s Responsibilities in Light of the Socarides Debate,
Milton, M. (1995) Counselling Psychology’s Responsibilities in Light of the Socarides Debate, Counselling Psychology Review, V10 (4). 28-29