Counselling psychology in Australia

Abstract

Counselling psychology in Australia is a relatively young profession. Nevertheless, in its short existence Australian Counselling Psychology has had to deal with a number of the issues facing counselling psychologists around the world. We have borrowed from the experience of other countries, particularly that of the United States of America, in establishing this specialization but have developed a relatively coherent model across the country. In this paper we will discuss the current status of counselling psychology, outline the main themes that appear to be salient in the Australian literature on counselling psychology, link these to the main issues involved in training, and relate these training issues to how the universities who train counselling psychologists have dealt with them.