The Learning Community and Emotional Learning in a University-based Training of Counsellors and Psychotherapists

This paper is the first stage in a larger international comparative project, coordinated through the International Association of Counselling, on policy determinants in the education of counsellors. It arose in part out of an interest in the cultural determinants of what is taken as evidence. As a first stage for the project, a case study approach is used that asks what are the important features of the therapeutic learning experience provided by programmes in different countries, and how have these come about. The first example is a 4-year MSc programme in Counselling and Psychotherapy in the United Kingdom, with the focus on the intended therapeutic learning experience. It is argued that much of the emerging dominant training model of today is unbalanced, with too great an emphasis on CBT and short-term cost-effectiveness, rather than on the provision of a sound understanding based on learning from lived experience. There is concern at the extent to which depths of thinking and feeling are brushed aside, and with this a focus on the relationship and understanding of people’s experiences. The authors provide an analysis of their chosen training model through locating it historically in trends within European philosophy. The paper concludes by considering the appropriateness of Eurocentric approaches for other cultures.