Psychological type and counselling psychology trainees’ choice of counselling orientation

Abstract

Clarifying the factors which influence choice of counselling orientation is important. This study investigated whether psychological type is associated with choice of orientation in counselling psychology trainees. Sets of questionnaires were sent to 210 counselling psychology trainees in four universities, which resulted in a sample of 84 participants. The measures were the Keirsey Temperament Sorter II and a short demographic questionnaire which also asked open-ended questions about chosen orientation. Participants who preferred SJ (Sensing-Judging) were more likely to choose the CBT model, NFJ (Intuition-Feeling-Judging) types the Psychodynamic model and NFPs (Intuition-Feeling-Perceiving) the Person-Centred model.

Keywords:

• Psychological type
• counselling psychology trainees
• choice of counselling orientation

Acknowledgement

We would like to thank Nick Dodd for his very helpful contributions to this paper.