Personal – Pluralistic Practice

The Strength that We Find in Our New Everyday

Kate Smith PhD, Abertay University At the start of 2021 we entered another lockdown, another phase of potential isolation, changes to our usual habits and preferences and, for many, the removal of essential cultural resources and supports. I have been dwelling on how pluralism responds to difficulties such as these…

Pluralistic Therapy Cards: Playing with Potential

November 26, 2020 Arts therapies Cultural resources Personal 6 Comments

Shirley Brennan, MSc Pluralistic Counselling When I embarked on my pluralistic counselling training journey, I was not familiar with the word ‘pluralism’ and only a vague idea what it might mean in practice. The course was offering a unique and open approach to counselling with a progressive philosophy. I was…

Personal and Professional Development Groups in Counselling and Psychotherapy Training: A Pluralistic Perspective

November 23, 2020 groups Personal Training 1 Comment

Julia McLeod, Marie-Clare Murphie, Kate Smith, Christine Kupfer and Mhairi Thurston (University of Abertay), Hanne Oddli (University of Oslo), Lynne Gabriel (York St John University), Mick Cooper (University of Roehampton) What do personal and professional development (PPD) groups, on counselling and psychotherapy training courses, look like from a pluralistic perspective?…

Focus: Finding my Strengths in Pluralistic Practice

October 30, 2020 Critiques Person-centred Personal Practice Therapeutic approaches 2 Comments

Darren Hopgood BA(Hons) MBACP MNCS, Academic Researcher (Counselling Tutor) and Private Practice (Chiron Counselling Support) I have been practising for a short time now, two and a half years, not long at all. When I qualified as an integrative counsellor, I focused on person-centred, Gestalt, and cognitive behavioural therapy. Whilst…

Pluralistic Counselling for Sight Loss

August 3, 2020 Personal Philosophy Practice Research Training 4 Comments

Dr Mhairi Thurston, Senior Lecturer in Counselling at Abertay University I am a blind pluralistic counselling academic with an irrational fear of writing. That blank page and the deafening voice of my inner critic, telling me no one is interested in what I have to say and that other people…

Pluralism: A Home for Gender Fluidity?

July 29, 2020 Gender Personal Politics 6 Comments

Dan Jones is a mental health social worker in the University of Roehampton’s Student Support Services and with the Enabling Assessment Service London. He is also a trainee psychotherapist at the Minster Centre. As I write this, I am again feeling a profound sense of anxiety – an experience which…

A Plural Personal History: Can Pluralism ‘Mek Room for All of We’?

June 22, 2020 Critiques Cultural diversity Personal Politics Training 12 Comments

Paula Watson, Humanistic Psychotherapy Trainee, Juneteenth 2020 Until I started school, I was raised by Windrush grandparents in the heart of a Caribbean community in 1970s London. My grandfather had been a subsistence farmer back home in Jamaica, and he still kept many chickens and rabbits in the backyard despite…

Journey of a Pluralistic Trainee: A Response to COVID-19

June 18, 2020 Personal Practice Training 9 Comments

Emma Foley, Trainee BA (Hons) Counselling & Therapeutic Practice, @ USW Newport Practising to work pluralistically during the second year of my counselling degree came with a comforting, familiar, ‘clickety clack’. The cart was sitting firmly on the rails and the view was amazing, opening up to new horizons. I…

Complexities of Working with Client Preferences

May 18, 2020 Personal Preferences Shared decision making 2 Comments

Caroline Burke, psychotherapist in private practice, Personal Development Tutor, IICP. The pluralistic approach—which prioritises the perspective of the client, their goals, and preferences—has challenged me personally. I trained as a psychodynamic psychotherapist, so the organic unfolding of a client’s story within the cultivation of a therapeutic relationship, unrestricted by time, is…

Bread and Jam and Sparkling Wine? Can I be Person-Centred and Pluralistic?

May 12, 2020 Arts therapies Person-centred Personal Philosophy Practice Therapeutic approaches 9 Comments

Ani de la Prida, creative arts counsellor, psychotherapist, founder of the Association for Person Centred Creative Arts, and lecturer at the University of East London I have been a passionate person-centred therapist and trainer for many years. A couple of years ago I attended the pluralistic conference in London, and…

Heal Thy-Self: Goal Setting for Self

May 11, 2020 Goals Personal Training 2 Comments

Darren Hopgood, MBACP NCS, child counsellor, adult carer support counsellor, online counsellor As my dissertation word count is not increasing in any way, and my deadline getting closer and closer, and the realisation that I am getting less present-motivated and more future-anxious, I needed help. While the storm outside kept…

Arguing the Difference While Rome Burns: Perhaps Pluralism Can Help?

April 29, 2020 Personal Philosophy Practice Therapeutic approaches 4 Comments

Andrew Reeves, Associate Professor in the Counselling Professions and Mental Health, University of Chester Like many others working in the psychological therapies I have, over my 30-plus years of being a practitioner, been immersed in the diversity of therapeutic approaches. Humanistic, psychodynamic, cognitive-behavioural – to name the loose umbrella headings…

A Moment in Time: Opportunity and Challenge During Covid-19

April 28, 2020 Co-production Personal Practice Shared decision making 6 Comments

Caroline Burke, psychotherapist in private practice; Lecturer in Personal Development IICP It seems to me that this pandemic offers us, as therapists, a unique experience of symmetry with our clients. This is a moment in time where client and therapist are navigating exactly the same landscape, albeit from different standpoints. From a…

A ‘Love’ Letter to Pluralism

April 27, 2020 Personal Training 4 Comments

Dear Pluralism, I have had a lot of time on my hands over the last month or, more aptly, the hands of the clock are rotating in very unprecedented ways for me. I suppose this coupled with the imminent ending of my university studies as a pluralistic therapist has found…

The Art of Room Travel as a Cultural Resource

March 26, 2020 Cultural resources Personal 2 Comments

Fiona Stirling, Abertay University In 1790 a Frenchman named Xavier de Maistre took part in an illegal duel. His survival was promptly rewarded by the courts with 6 weeks of house arrest. Confined suddenly to his home, as many of us now find ourselves amidst the COVID-19 pandemic a full…

Finding Myself Coming Back Again

February 24, 2020 Personal 3 Comments

Dr Andrew Reeves, Associate Professor in the Counselling Professions and Mental Health, University of Chester Do you find pluralism, or does it find you? Or, can you be pluralistic all along without really realising it? I ask because I have had several conversations recently with people who have approached me…

Sitting in the Grey: Letting Go of Either/Or

February 5, 2020 Epistemology Personal 3 Comments

Caitríona Kearns, Director of Registry & Operations, IICP College, Dublin. As we approach the Third International Conference for Pluralistic Counselling and Psychotherapy in Dublin (28-29 March 2020), I find myself reflecting on my own journey toward pluralistic practice and research. I was very young when I started training as a…

A Soulful Solstice

December 17, 2019 Personal Philosophy Politics Shared decision making 2 Comments

Lynne Gabriel, School of Psychological and Social Sciences, York St John University For me, the winter solstice is an important time for simply being, for reflecting on the year and for heralding the return of the light. I am usually to be found winding down at this point; feeling mellow,…

Pluralism: Uniting the opposites

November 12, 2019 Personal Philosophy No Comments

Richard Knight, School of Psychological and Social Sciences, York St John University, Lord Mayor’s Walk, York, YO31 7EX It’s always been an item on my bucket list to visit Gatecrasher (a club night that became popular in the 90s and early 2000s). Some of you will remember it as the…

Learning about pluralistic therapy: Living with uncertainty

October 18, 2019 Personal Training 7 Comments

Kate Smith, University of Abertay One thing that I am pretty sure about is that, in life, it takes confidence to not be certain for any length of time. The idea of pluralism relies fundamentally on an acceptance of equally valid ‘other truths’ which must be accommodated in to the…

Passionate about Pluralism

October 15, 2019 Personal 3 Comments

Mick Cooper, co-author of Pluralistic counselling and psychotherapy (Sage, 2011). Illustration by Agnieszka Zapart (www.obrazkoterapia.pl) Why am I passionate about pluralism? Why does it mean so much to me? If pluralism was a particular clinical technique, I’m sure I could really care about it; but I don’t think I’d ever…