Year
2024Credit points
10Campus offering
Prerequisites
Nil
Unit rationale, description and aim
This unit explores contemporary theories and interventions that underpin effective counselling practice and the personal development required for counsellors. The focus will be on developing an understanding of the concepts and techniques associated with several approaches. Students will become familiar with the process of how individuals change and how to develop an integrative approach to counselling. A core aspect of the unit will be to provide students with the opportunity to practice counselling skills and respond to various types of problems from the point of view of different approaches. Personal development will enable students to increase self-awareness and insight to understand the counselling relationship. The overall aim of the unit is to provide students with insight into the personal development required for counsellors, a solid base of counselling theories and their interventions, and a clear view on the structure of the counselling process.
Learning outcomes
To successfully complete this unit you will be able to demonstrate you have achieved the learning outcomes (LO) detailed in the below table.
Each outcome is informed by a number of graduate capabilities (GC) to ensure your work in this, and every unit, is part of a larger goal of graduating from ACU with the attributes of insight, empathy, imagination and impact.
Explore the graduate capabilities.
| Learning Outcome Number | Learning Outcome Description |
|---|---|
| LO1 | Articulate the principles of contemporary approaches to counselling and differentiate between the techniques used in counselling derived from each of these theories |
| LO2 | Critically analyse, evaluate and interpret the main arguments of each approach and identify the strengths and weaknesses of each approach |
| LO3 | Develop the ability to investigate counselling strategies for a range of presenting problems and describe key features of intake, referral and termination |
| LO4 | Model the capacity to develop the therapeutic alliance and apply counselling skills in an ethical manner |
| LO5 | Demonstrate critical self-reflection and self-awareness |
Content
Topics will include:
- cognitive behavioural therapy
- acceptance and commitment therapy
- compassion focused therapy
- schema therapy
- dialectical behavioural therapy
- postmodern approaches
- cognitive restructuring methods and applications
- guided imagery and graded desensitisation methods and applications
- mindfulness and defusion techniques
- cognitive modelling methods and applications
- the therapeutic alliance
- ethical practice
- referral and referral options; and stages of the therapy process: initial interview, assessment, structure of sessions, processes and techniques
Learning and teaching strategy and rationale
This unit will use an experiential approach to the teaching/learning process and students will be required to undertake a range of activities to explore critical issues. Based on active learning and case studies, students will be required to discuss theories and the implementation of these theories and their techniques into realistic role play scenarios. This will allow the students to practice and evaluate their skills in real time. Additional weekly reading and/or web-based learning activities will be required.
Assessment strategy and rationale
In order to successfully complete this unit, students will need to complete and submit all Assessment Tasks listed in the table below. In addition to this, students must obtain an aggregate mark of at least 50% to pass the unit. The assessment strategy for this unit allows students to demonstrate their acquisition of knowledge, as well as the application of that knowledge. In order to best enable students to demonstrate Learning Outcomes and develop Graduate Attributes, standards-based assessment is utilised, consistent with University assessment requirements. Students will be encouraged to reflect on their developing knowledge of key concepts and remain consistently engaged in content through the weekly reflections. The interview and report offers an opportunity for students to demonstrate their understanding of the skills and their ability to implement their working knowledge of the theories highlighting how these may be challenging when working as a counsellor. Finally, the recall of key knowledge and concepts is assessed via multiple-choice questions in the final exam.
Overview of assessments
| Brief Description of Kind and Purpose of Assessment Tasks | Weighting | Learning Outcomes |
|---|---|---|
Weekly Reflections Enable students to reflect on their development as a counsellor and their understanding of counselling theories. | 20% | LO3, LO4, LO5 |
Interview and Report Enable students to demonstrate their capacity to adopt an attitude of understanding the experience of the interviewee and to apply counselling theories. | 40% | LO1, LO2, LO3, LO4, LO5 |
Final Exam Enables students to demonstrate their knowledge of theories and their application. | 40% | LO1, LO2 |
Representative texts and references
Corey, G. (2017). Theory and practice of counseling and psychotherapy (10th ed). Brooks/Cole
Egan, G. (2018). The skilled helper: A problem-management and opportunity-development approach to helping (11th ed). Brooks/Cole.
De Jong, P., & Berg, I. K. (2013). Interviewing for solutions (4th ed). Pacific Grove, CA: Brooks/Cole.
Ivey, A. E., & Ivey, M.B. (2017). Intentional interviewing and counselling: Facilitating client development in a multicultural society (9th ed). Allyn & Bacon.
Remley, T.P., & Herlihy, B., (2019). Ethical, legal and professional issues in counseling (6th ed) Pearson.
Westbrook, D., Kennerly, H., & Kirk, J. (2016). An introduction to cognitive behavioural therapy: Skills and applications (3rd ed). Sage.