Training – Pluralistic Practice

The Radical Nature of Pluralism in Therapy

Mick Cooper, Professor of Counselling Psychology, University of Roehampton One of the challenges to pluralism in therapy, over the years, is that we’re not really saying anything new. The challenge goes something like, ‘Yeah, pluralism, that’s great, but we’re all pluralists anyway. I’ve been doing pluralism for years.’ Being pluralistic,…

Going for Accreditation as a Pluralistic Counsellor

March 23, 2023 Accreditation Practice Training No Comments

John Hills, Tricia Joyce, Julia McLeod, Nicola Blunden, James Schindler-Ord, and Gary Tebble. With thanks to: Kevin Kirwan (BACP) and Jenny McLintock (COSCA) If you are a pluralistic therapist preparing to apply for accreditation, you may be wondering about professional body attitudes towards pluralism, as an emerging approach within counselling…

Conference Tickets and Call for Papers

March 17, 2023 CPD Information and Updates Philosophy Practice Training No Comments

The International Conference on Pluralistic Counselling and Psychotherapy is excited to invite practitioners, academics, and individuals interested in the Pluralistic approach to our annual event. This year’s theme is ‘Applied Pluralistic Therapy: What are we doing in practice?’ and will explore the impact of collaboration and taking our practices beyond…

Final Schedule and Last Call for Tickets

June 3, 2022 CPD Online Practice Research Training No Comments

We everyone is enjoying the long weekend! We are all getting very excited to welcome all of the pluralistic community to the conference tonight and tomorrow! Get Tickets Here. Read the Schedule for the Weekend Here. Check out the Conference Booklet Here.

ICPCP 2022 Conference Next Week!

May 24, 2022 CPD Information and Updates Training No Comments

Hope everyone’s getting excited for the conference next week! If you still need to get a ticket you can get one here. As a taster, you can find videos with our wonderful keynote speaker below;

‘Scaffolding’ and ‘De-Specifying’: Deepening an Understanding of Clients’ Preferences through Conversational Analysis

April 7, 2022 Co-production Metatherapeutic communication Practice Preferences Shared decision making Training No Comments

Sarah Cantwell, @cantwels1 For better or worse, I’ve always had a drive towards trying to comprehend the fundamental structure of things. Unsurprisingly then, I majored in philosophy for my undergraduate degree, and I took my curiosity about underlying causes with me, through my studies in psychology and into my counselling…

The Metatherapeutic Current in Pluralism

March 31, 2022 Arts therapies Co-production Critiques Integrative and Eclectic Practices Metatherapeutic communication Person-centred Preferences Therapeutic approaches Training 5 Comments

Nicola Blunden, BSc Person-Centred Pluralistic Counselling, Metanoia Institute, London Terry Eagleton, one of my favourite philosophers, has written that, ‘For much of the time, our intellectual and other activities bowl along fairly serenely, and in this situation no great expenditure of theoretical energy is usually necessary. But there may come…

Finding a Voice: Speech Therapy and Pluralistic Practice

June 2, 2021 Practice Training No Comments

Darren Hopgood, BA (Hons) MNCS, Pluralistic counsellor at You Can Be You Counselling, Durham County Carers Support, Counsellor Whether it is the 40, 50, or 60-year-old person that has had a stroke; or the child or teenager and beyond; difficulties with speech can be a highly emotional issue that plague…

4th International Conference on Pluralistic Counselling and Psychotherapy – Submission Deadline Extended!

May 25, 2021 Information and Updates Networking Research Training No Comments

We have now extended the deadline for submissions to Friday 11th June due to ongoing interest. Please find more information regarding submissions here and book tickets here. We welcome submissions from trainees, practitioners, and service users, as well as more experienced academics and researchers. Our aim is to create a warm, friendly, and…

Conference 2021 Update – Tickets and Abstracts

April 27, 2021 Information and Updates Research Training No Comments

Call for Papers and Ticket Information We’re so excited for this years conference on the 16th and 17th July. Our annual conference will be held online, and hosted by the University of South Wales and Online Events. They are seeking submissions of abstracts from trainees, practitioners, and service users, as…

Survey of Pluralistic Practice: Key Findings

December 17, 2020 Information and Updates Practice Research Training 2 Comments

Julia McLeod, School of Applied Sciences, Abertay University An on-line survey of counselling and psychotherapy practitioners who identified themselves as using, or influenced by, a pluralistic framework for practice, was conducted in April 2020. Invitations to complete the survey were circulated by email to a wide range of individuals who…

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?…

A Pluralistic Approach in the Diverse Counselling Classroom – A Students Perspective

August 24, 2020 Cultural diversity Cultural resources Training No Comments

Adeola Russell is a Director of Black Therapy Matters CIC, a community interest group currently focused on increasing the number of qualified BAME counsellors and psychotherapists practising in the UK. One of the ways in which their current project seeks to achieve this is by actively recruiting BAME students to…

Pluralistic Counselling for Sight Loss

August 3, 2020 Personal Philosophy Practice Research Training 6 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…

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…

Shaping the Future of Pluralistic Therapy

May 26, 2020 Research Therapeutic approaches Training No Comments

Julia McLeod, Lecturer in Counselling, Abertay University, Dundee Over the last few weeks, there’s been a lot of activity going on behind the scenes to create an online therapist survey on pluralistic practice. The survey has now been published, and is open until the 8th June 2020. You can access…

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…

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…

From Ticking Boxes to Meeting People: My Counselling Journey

December 11, 2019 Training 3 Comments

Darren Hopgood, Trainee Counsellor, University of Sunderland I realised, when I researched pluralistic counselling at college for a modalities presentation, that I wanted to be a pluralistic counsellor. It was the thought of a counsellor and client being part of a collaborative partnership that inspired me to start working towards…

Pluralistic Art Psychotherapy: Valuing Diverse Lenses

December 6, 2019 Arts therapies Practice Shared decision making Training 1 Comment

Dr Caryl Sibbett, Kairos Consultancy. Art Psychotherapist (HCPC Reg.); Counsellor (BACP Reg, Snr Accred.); Associate Lecturer, Ulster University, (ret’d Senior Lecturer). I have a childhood memory of walking with my family beside a river in the Glens of Antrim. Stopping at a vantage point where visitors could view a waterfall…

The Pluralistic Features of Single-Session Therapy and One-At-A-Time Therapy

November 19, 2019 CBT CPD Practice Training 1 Comment

Windy Dryden, RECBT Therapist, Trainer & Academic In the last five years, I have become increasingly interested in Single-Session Therapy (SST) and One-At-A-Time Therapy (OATTT) as a way of providing therapeutic help at the point of need rather than at the point of availability. The consensus in the SST/OAATT community…

Deliberate Practice (and Why it Matters to Pluralistic Therapy)

November 7, 2019 Deliberate practice Practice Training 3 Comments

Alexander Vaz (ISPA-University Institute, Portugal) Deliberate Practice (DP) is a training philosophy that represents one of the most evidence-based methods we know of to improve ‘performance’ in an effective and reliable manner. Decades of research have demonstrated that lengthy engagement in DP is associated with expert performance across a variety…

Developing Practitioner Confidence: Observations from Teaching Pluralism

November 6, 2019 Deliberate practice Training No Comments

Marcella Finnerty, IICP College, Dublin As an institution, IICP College, has always been integrative, and more recently pluralistic, in its teaching approach. But we have struggled with how and when to present such ideas to our students. By the time we introduce pluralistic counselling and psychotherapy, our students are already…

Five tips for Positive Goals Work in Counselling and Psychotherapy

October 24, 2019 Goals Practice Shared decision making Training 1 Comment

Dr Gina Di Malta, CPsychol., Lecturer in Psychotherapy and Counselling, The Open University Setting goals in therapeutic work is used across a range of psychotherapies. It is especially commonplace in therapies such as cognitive-behavioural therapy (CBT), where clients may be encouraged to set SMART goals (specific, measurable, achievable, realistic and…

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…

Training in the Pluralistic Approach

June 11, 2019 CPD Training 1 Comment

Mick Cooper, University of Roehampton One of the questions that I’m asked on a fairly regular basis is how you should go about training in a pluralistic approach, and whether it’s possible if you’ve already got a first training in another modality and don’t want to re-train. Julia McLeod and…