Career Paths in Counselling
The Graduate Centre for Applied Psychology (GCAP) is designed to prepare individuals for professional practice in a wide range of specialized roles within the field of counselling.
What is Counselling?
Counselling is a popular term in our culture that is used to describe a wide range of informal and formal activities. The term is used to describe both a process and a profession. Counselling as a process is shared by many occupational groups, both those who do formal counselling (psychologists, social workers, nurses, etc.) and those who do informal counselling (travel counsellors, financial counsellors, etc.).
When we are referring to the counselling process, we have a specific set of activities in mind, namely, attending to and facilitating change in cognitive, affective, behavioural, and systemic or contextual experiences that interfere with healthy development and functioning.
We define the profession of counselling, then, as a collaborative relationship in which the counsellor draws on psychological, health promotion, developmental, and educational processes to facilitate wellness, personal growth, healing, problem solving, crisis management, and healthy personal and interpersonal development within individuals, groups, or communities.
This very general definition opens the door for counsellors to assume a wide range of professional roles, but clearly separates both the process and the profession from informal uses of the term.
Professional Roles
Graduates of the Master of Counselling program who have a strong psychology background may want to license (charter) as a Counselling Psychologist. Counselling Psychologists work in a wide range of college and university, mental health, government, and community settings, as well as in private practice. For more information on a career as a psychologist, check out the Canadian Psychological Association's Psychology Quick Facts. The Master of Counselling program is designed to provide students with the graduate academic background required to begin the licensing process through the College of Alberta Psychologists. Students from other jurisdictions are encouraged to check out the local registration criteria to ensure that their coursework conforms to those requirements.
Others may prefer to move towards the role of Professional Counsellor, seeking, for example, Canadian Counsellor Certification through the Canadian Counselling Association (CCA). The program has been designed to allow students to meet the certification criteria of the CCA, a national association of professionally trained counsellors working in diverse areas of education, employment and career development, social work, business, industry, mental health, public service agencies, government, and private practice.
Professional Counselling Specializations
The field of counselling is further defined by a number of particular areas of specialization, some of which offer professional recognition and association in provincial and national organizations. The program is designed so that all students first meet the foundational requirements for the general practice of professional counselling and then select a specialization. Over time, we hope to expand the areas of specialization to enable students to pursue particular career paths. To clarify your own educational and career path, you may wish to explore in detail particular areas of specialization currently offered, as well as those we are planning for the future.
Page last updated: May 14, 2009 @ 08:11:27 AM
