Recommendations for Improving NZAC’s Continuing Professional Development Process

NZAC’s Continuing Professional Development Record and Plan (CPDR+P) is a member’s annual listing of continuing professional development (CPD) activities and self-reflection on those activities, and a yearly plan that targets areas for further development. The focus of the process is a self-reflective practice of reviewing and reflecting on new learning. Surprisingly, demonstrating one’s effectiveness with clients does not feature. Since research has shown that traditional CPD activities are not consistently related to improved client outcomes, a more meaningful process of CPDR+P should have as one of its major aims the counsellor’s “…steady improvement over time to achieve superior performance on some meaningful [outcome] measure” (Goodyear et al., p. 54). This article suggests a rebalancing of the current self-reflection focus in NZAC’s CPDR+P to include counsellors’ collecting and analysing information about their client caseload and progress in counselling in order to answer three questions: (1) Who am I dealing with? (2) How well am I dealing with them? and (3) How effectively am I dealing with them? Recommended changes to the CPDR+P process are discussed

“They Felt our Pain”: Pasifika Students’ Experience of Counsellor Educators

A qualitative study was undertaken to explore several elements of Pasifika students’ learning experiences as counselling students in Aotearoa New Zealand tertiary institutions. This article discusses one of the key areas identified from the data, namely Pasifika counselling students’ experiences of counsellor educators. An Indigenous Pacific framework using teu le vāand talanoa was applied to the research design and underpinned the ethicsof this study. Four focus groups were conducted to facilitate talanoa with eight current Pasifika students and seven graduates from five counsellor education programmes in 2021. Participants spoke about the importance of relationality with the educators, the cultural understanding of the educators, and their preferred styles of class facilitation and delivery. The findings provide some recommendations for supporting Pasifika counselling students, supervisees, and colleagues

Effectiveness of Online Triads for Developing Counselling Students’ Clinical Skills, Competency, and Practice: Student Perspectives Following COVID-19

Undergraduate counselling students usually participate in triads as part of their counsellor education. This study aimed to explore how a cohort of undergraduate counselling and addiction practice students rated the effectiveness of the online triad component of their course. A survey containing Likert-scale and open field response options was completed by nine third- and thus, final-year students. Likert data is presented using descriptive statistics, while an inductive thematic analysis of the open field responses was undertaken. The study found that online triads were rated equally as effective as in-person triads in helping to develop students’ clinical skills, competency, and practice, while also improving students’ confidence prior to placements. The students valued the learning accrued from participating in triads and called for more triads to be added to the curriculum. Given many counsellors now engage in a mix of in-person and online counselling, training that involves both methods of delivery will likely be beneficial to undergraduate counselling and addiction practice courses

Schools, Signification, and Subjectification: Enlisting the “Wonderfulness Interview” in School Counselling to Respond to Deficit Discourses within High School Communities

As a school counsellor working with young people between the ages of 11 and 18, I am conscious that the technologies of measurement, assessment, and evaluation developed in educational and developmental traditions construct a gaze of normalising judgment (Foucault, 1977). This gaze invites teachers to describe young people in relation to their deviation from the “norm”, creating a language of individual deficit that seeks to police students’ identities in specific ways. I am also mindful that these descriptions are often granted a certain authority as an effect of their professionalised nature, the cultural status of teachers, and the power relations between adults and adolescents that invite adolescents into a position of passivity. As such, we can understand that young people in schools are vulnerable to internalising stories told about them by adults and authority figures, many of which pathologise them. This article thus documents the use of narrative therapy’s “wonderfulness interview” (Marsten et al., 2016) as a way to de-stabilise pathologising stories of students’ learning and behaviour whilst drawing out rich descriptions of storylines that are meaningful to their lives and identities. At the centre of this text is a story archiving the journey of three young women as they subvert the power relations of the classroom and reclaim authorship over their identities

“Why Am I The Only One?”: The Experience of Non-death Loss and Grief for Chinese International High School Students in Auckland, New Zealand During COVID-19

This qualitative research explored the non-death loss and grief experiences of Chinese international high school students during the COVID-19 pandemic in Auckland, New Zealand. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with six Chinese international high school students. The data were analysed using a thematic analysis approach. This study demonstrates the complexity of non-death loss and grief experienced by international high school students during the pandemic. This study proposes that socio-cultural factors and the developmental characteristics of adolescence, rather than individual characteristics, played significant roles in contributing to, and complicating, these loss and grief experiences in the context of the global crisis. Implications for practice, research, and education are discussed

Meeting God in “thin places”: Subjective experiences of spirituality accompanying clients through difficult life events

This research highlights the complexities of counselling clients’ subjective experiences of spirituality that accompany difficult life events. Two spiritual and cultural metaphors are employed: “Te Kore Kore”, a place in the Māori creation story of nothingness and potential for life (Marsden, 2003); and the Celtic concept of “thin places”, describing moments of feeling especially close to God (O’Donohue, 1999). In this small-scale qualitative research study, six counselling clients shared their experience of these domains through semi- structured interviews employing an interpretative phenomenological analysis (IPA) double hermeneutic approach, which revealed rich metaphorical landscapes of lived experience, common themes and hidden gems. Personal processes of surrender, acceptance, and trust in God were described, leading to longer lasting improvements in physical, psychological, and spiritual health. Spiritual practices such as mindfulness, contemplation, and connection to sacred spaces in nature were found to cultivate awareness of God’s closeness during difficult times, which led to deepened relationships with God. As participants were working with a counsellor, spiritual director, or medical support person during their difficult life experiences, this article has implications for raising spiritual awareness in counselling practice and suggests the importance of future research into the shared spiritual truths and experiences of Te Tiriti partners

A critical investigation of school guidance counselling in Aotearoa New Zealand

This article invites guidance counsellors to examine their role as wellbeing experts in Aotearoa New Zealand schools. By drawing on critical scholars like McLeod and Wright (2016), Rose (1999), and Foucault (1995), it examines how the dominant discourse of wellbeing inspires young people to focus on managing their emotions to become self-optimising, happy, individualised, responsible, and productive citizens. While this may appear beneficial, concerns are raised for how wellbeing guides school counsellors to exercise contested and problematic psy-knowledge that encourages young people to overlook important societal issues and govern themselves towards ideal neoliberal values and character. This article concludes by calling for more critical research and professional development within the guidance counselling profession to ensure our work is informed by ethical, evidence-based, and socially just theories and practices

Affirming counsellors as heroic healers

This article challenges counsellors to reframe their professional identities by recognising themselves as “heroic healers”, integrating characteristics of the wounded healer archetype with traits associated with social heroes. While counsellors may be reluctant to view themselves as heroic, their work requires stepping into the unknown with clients, mirroring Joseph Campbell’s (1949) Hero’s Journey. Applying heroism studies (Allison, 2016), the article positions counsellors as “social heroes” (Allison & Goethals, 2014), engaging in self-actualising behaviours that embody risk, altruism, and emotional courage (Zimbardo, 2011). By integrating humanistic counselling principles with the traits of social heroes, it is argued that counsellors, like heroes, embark on transformative journeys that confirm their resilience, dedication, and compassion. Framing their work as both healing and heroic, this article calls for a re-evaluation of counsellor identity, one that honours, empowers, and affirms their commitment to fostering personal and professional transformation