Research is an interesting aspect of counselling and psychotherapy, and I think it is very important. It is essentially a sphere of knowledge that exists parallel to your own body of knowledge as a person and as a counsellor, and overlaps in places. Research, or “finding out what works” has created talking therapies and its different modalities and theories, and refined them over the years. Due to research, several theories have merged (such as cognitive therapy and behavioural therapy); others have evolved, while others still have been stripped back to the bare essentials. Person centred counselling is an example of this – if at any time a person-centred counsellor feels lost in a session, they should just accept the feelings inside them in that moment in relation to the client and what they are saying – and go back to the core conditions of unconditional positive regard, empathy and congruence.
I’m quite interested to see how research has shaped and informed counselling theory over the years since its creation, and I am able to see it thanks to it all being in the public domain. For example I can read Carl Rogers early works on person-centred counselling, then read his research notes, and then read his later works… It’s all in there; the evolution of the field. In a similar vein I can read the early works of most of the big names in counselling and psychotherapy, and follow their development through their published works.
While I do think that the “effectiveness” of some types of counselling is incredibly hard to quantify, it is worth looking at research to identify certain trends and make associations between presenting problems and the various counselling theories. I personally think that it is impossible to correctly gauge the effectiveness of counselling by assigning a number to how you are feeling from one day to the next because our lives are so dynamic and fluid; the number could be changed due to any number of circumstances – not just the therapy. It is better to gather a lot of data, and then take a step back to identify the wider correlations to see which problems were treated well by each of the particular counselling theories. Similar to this; individual clients and their personal attitudes and circumstances are so unique, as are counsellors and their processes and methodology, that when you combine the two, the unique therapeutic relationship can only truly be judged in relation to itself in the past. Measuring this with a number scale over time and with enough case studies it may reveal broad percentage increases, but someone’s 7 on a good day could be someone else’s 7 on a bad day. The numbers are relative to the individual.
I enjoy reading articles on websites such as Psychology Today and the latest news section on the BACP website, and have used one or two tips to inform my own activities. An article on Psychology Today was how I learned how to properly meditate and this line jumped out on another article I read on there recently: “anxiety is our friend when we are facing adversity, but a beast when it gets a hold on us”. During these trying times, with Coronavirus looming over us all, and lockdown changing our lives drastically, it’s important to remember this – that anxiety is good when we need it for our survival, but it can take over if we lean into it too much.
As I do have a bit of free time at the moment due to being in lockdown, I have been reading up on a variety of topics, ranging from counselling and psychotherapy to psychology and philosophy. I like to have one physical book on the go at any one time, and I’m currently reading a book about how to be authentic by knowing and understanding yourself, owning yourself and the way you are, and being your true self. I also like to listen to audiobooks on my commute rather than brainlessly stare at my phone and scroll social media – I’m currently listening to a book about communication with people you don’t know very well, and how you can often get it wrong. It’s quite interesting, and I can see how it would be useful for counselling practise.
In terms of what learning about research has taught me about myself as a person and as a counsellor, I think it’s helped me realise that we’re always collecting research, unconsciously. Our experiences in the world inform our expectations and are a form of trial and error; we take what works and discard what does not. I enjoyed researching research, if that makes sense, and finding out all the different styles of research was interesting. Quantitative research interests me a lot because it is anecdotal and based on personal experiences. I would rather read a book about a psychotherapist’s most memorable clients than a textbook listing statistics and numbers.
