First Posted on September 15, 2010 by alisonball
I was asked the other day what was PACFA and why was our association a member of that body. PACFA, or more properly the Psychotherapy and Counselling Federation of Australia, grew out of a series of meetings between many of the people in Australia who were teachers of psychotherapy and counselling. These people eventually formed an association called the Society of Counselling and Psychotherapy Educators (SCAPE) and themselves are now members of PACFA -after it had been decided to set up an umbrella association of associations.
The meetings and the formation of PACFA were moves toward self-regulation of the professions of counselling and psychotherapy. The people at the original meetings were very concerned about the fact that, as it currently stood, any person could put up their shingle and call themselves a counsellor or a psychotherapist- irrespective of whether they had been trained well or, in fact had any training at all. They also had a strong belief that psychotherapy and counselling should be seen as distinct and separate professions from psychology or psychiatry needing special training, practice standards, ethics and other requirements.
The early meetings had in attendance a very broad spectrum of educators of counsellors and psychotherapists. By definition, the very fact that they were there, meant that they considered they actually did train people in those professions and that they believed that specific training was required. The “cowboys” at the totally irresponsible end were not there. Even so there was a huge diversity in what members thought was good enough training.
And much of that diversity of thinking still stands. There were big differences regarding how much theory, how much experiential learning, how much personal individual counselling, psychotherapy or psychoanalysis would be required of students and then, how much or how frequent was the amount of supervision that would be required of the new and experienced therapists and counsellors.
PACFA had to start with absolute minimum standards so as to be able to encompass all the disparate groups. Over time they have gradually moved to raise standards and requirements of training. There have also been ongoing tensions between those who want to emphasise the common base of practice between all groups and those who have thought the standards were too low and perhaps want to differentiate themselves from other groups within PACFA.
The journey has been very difficult but culminated last year in the formation of an Australian national Register of Counsellors and Psychotherapists. (ARCAP). This Register will gradually become the “gold standard” of some sort of assurance on whether or not the counsellor or psychotherapist you might be seeing professionally, has actually been trained for their job. If the person you are seeing does not belong to an association that is represented on A.R.C.A.P then you would want to be asking some questions about the person’s training and professional regulation.
