New Zealand Journal of Counselling
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An Exploration of Factors Influencing Peer Conflict Behaviours: Implications for Counselling Practice
Get PDFThis article reports on a small qualitative research study in Aotearoa New Zealand into the nature of peer relational conflict. The author’s curiosity for the study developed as she noted that the majority of her counselling clients presented with post-conflict challenges and distress from their peer relationships, and that these challenges appeared to significantly undermine clients’ sense of healthy relatedness and esteem. The author noted that compared to family or couple conflict, little research was available in relation to conflict amongst peers.
Semi-flexible interviews were undertaken using an open-ended conversational approach to capture participants’ awareness of their peer conflict experiences and to best understand inherent meanings made of these conflict behaviours. Findings suggest that individual conflict behaviours are enacted in response to perceptions of self, safety, risk, and vulnerability. None of the participants identified behaving in ways during conflict situations that contravened their personal values, and each cited safety considerations as primary influencers. The implications of these findings for counsellors are that engaging in conversations with clients regarding conflict distress has the potential for useful change. This study highlights the need to provide an environment where such conversations are well paced and experienced as safe by the client
Supervision and COVID-19: Practices of manaakitanga in a period of uncertainty
Get PDFCOVID-19 has significantly affected the ways that human beings communicate and connect. Within the helping professions, experiences of anxiety and stress, and both potential and actual burnout for healthcare and social practitioners, have been reported. There has also been growing evidence of benefits from online methods of connection and supervision. Focusing on the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic for supervision and supervisors, this article explores the experiences of five counselling supervisors in Aotearoa New Zealand. The research project was part of a postgraduate paper in professional supervision where researcher-students, all experienced counsellors, worked together on a supervised, collaborative project. The findings highlight five specific areas for reflection: implications for the supervisory relationship; an impetus for self-reflection on what is important personally and in terms of practice; cultural implications, particularly around care and manaakitanga; practical implications with shifting to online supervision; and the mental wellbeing of supervisors and those who consult them. The study offers space to consider what can be achieved in the work of supervision in the face of unforeseen circumstances. Events such as the pandemic provide an opportunity for supervisors to reflect on our supervisory experiences and shifts in perspective and on our own abilities to adjust to personal struggles, something we often explore with others in our work
An Intermediate School Team’s Collaborative Working Relationships : Reflections from a School Counsellor, Senior Leader, Senco and Teacher
Get PDFThis article presents a reflective discussion of the complex space of school counsellor–teacher collaboration, in response to a gap in New Zealand-based literature and research on this topic. It draws on perspectives from literature and the authors’ experiences as an intermediate school counsellor, senior leader, special education needs coordinator, and teacher. This complexity is primarily seen to be a result of paradigmatic and ethical dissimilarities between teaching and counselling. The authors contend that this complexity requires serious consideration and can be navigated by negotiating middle grounds in response to student needs, developing role clarity, working in ways that enable each party to be creative whilst remaining grounded within their own role and associated ethical and paradigmatic responsibilities, and on-going reflective conversations to strengthen collaboration
Affirming counsellors as heroic healers
Get PDFThis article challenges counsellors to reframe their professional identities by recognising themselves as “heroic healers”, integrating characteristics of the wounded healer archetype with traits associated with social heroes. While counsellors may be reluctant to view themselves as heroic, their work requires stepping into the unknown with clients, mirroring Joseph Campbell’s (1949) Hero’s Journey. Applying heroism studies (Allison, 2016), the article positions counsellors as “social heroes” (Allison & Goethals, 2014), engaging in self-actualising behaviours that embody risk, altruism, and emotional courage (Zimbardo, 2011). By integrating humanistic counselling principles with the traits of social heroes, it is argued that counsellors, like heroes, embark on transformative journeys that confirm their resilience, dedication, and compassion.
Framing their work as both healing and heroic, this article calls for a re-evaluation of counsellor identity, one that honours, empowers, and affirms their commitment to fostering personal and professional transformation
“They Felt our Pain”: Pasifika Students’ Experience of Counsellor Educators
Get PDFA qualitative study was undertaken to explore several elements of Pasifika students’ learning experiences as counselling students in Aotearoa New Zealand tertiary institutions. This article discusses one of the key areas identified from the data, namely Pasifika counselling students’ experiences of counsellor educators. An Indigenous Pacific framework using teu le vāand talanoa was applied to the research design and underpinned the ethicsof this study.
Four focus groups were conducted to facilitate talanoa with eight current Pasifika students and seven graduates from five counsellor education programmes in 2021. Participants spoke about the importance of relationality with the educators, the cultural understanding of the educators, and their preferred styles of class facilitation and delivery. The findings provide some recommendations for supporting Pasifika counselling students, supervisees, and colleagues
Recognition of mind and body interactions in New Zealand counselling education and practice
Get PDFUsing mixed-method surveys and case study interviews, thirty emerging and experienced counsellors were queried on the mind–body interactions of body-oriented psychotherapies, nutrition, and physiological conditions relative to counselling education and practice. Participating counsellors did not consider their counselling education covered these areas well, particularly in body- oriented psychotherapies and nutrition with only 30% and 20% of participants respectively affirmative. Counsellors reported mixed confidence in knowledge and referral competency around nutritional and physiological health interactions with mental wellbeing. Counsellors generally (97%) did not consider body-oriented psychotherapies alternative and 100% indicated they would consider future professional development in this area. The Māori health model Te Whare Tapa
Whā is endorsed in Aotearoa New Zealand counselling education. This holistic wellbeing model recognises mind–body interactions. However, this research indicates inconsistent and often negligible mind–body interaction knowledge is taught in Aotearoa New Zealand counselling education
Effectiveness of Online Triads for Developing Counselling Students’ Clinical Skills, Competency, and Practice: Student Perspectives Following COVID-19
Get PDFUndergraduate counselling students usually participate in triads as part of their counsellor education. This study aimed to explore how a cohort of undergraduate counselling and addiction practice students rated the effectiveness of the online triad component of their course. A survey containing Likert-scale and open field response options was completed by nine third- and thus, final-year students.
Likert data is presented using descriptive statistics, while an inductive thematic analysis of the open field responses was undertaken. The study found that online triads were rated equally as effective as in-person triads in helping to develop students’ clinical skills, competency, and practice, while also improving students’ confidence prior to placements. The students valued the learning accrued from participating in triads and called for more triads to be added to the curriculum.
Given many counsellors now engage in a mix of in-person and online counselling, training that involves both methods of delivery will likely be beneficial to undergraduate counselling and addiction practice courses
Cultivating resilience in adolescent girls who have experienced Trauma:: A systematic literature review
Get PDFThis systematic literature review explores the resilience factors for adolescent girls who have experienced trauma. It focuses on their perspectives, to assist counsellors to provide effective support.
Sub-questions are:
- What adaptive coping strategies could counsellors teach or encourage?
- What other resources could counsellors encourage adolescent girls to use?
Ten international peer-reviewed qualitative studies were identified. They were assessed using the modified Critical Appraisal Skills Programme (CASP) tool and the findings were analysed using thematic analysis.
Five themes were identified as appropriate:
- fostering active agency;
- nurturing internal strengths and resources;
- building interpersonal connection; engaging with community; and,- connecting with their Indigenous culture.
Resulting recommendations for counsellors included fostering adolescent girls’ agency, facilitating conversations regarding future planning, and encouraging young Māori wāhine (women) to connect with their culture. The author identifies a need for further qualitative resilience research in Aotearoa New Zealand with adolescent girls who have experienced trauma