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Media Release

August 28 2003

Quality counselling should be more than ‘hit and miss’

With more and more Australians seeking help from counsellors to solve personal, family and workplace problems, it is becoming clear that choosing a counsellor with recognised professional qualifications can be a hit and miss activity.

This begs the question, according to senior lecturer in counselling at UniSA, Dr Nadine Pelling, how do you find a good general counsellor when counselling is an unregulated profession, in Australia?

“With great difficulty!” says Dr Pelling.

“A quick look at your local yellow pages reveals a whole range of people offering counselling services with few indications of professional qualifications or affiliation with a counselling organisation or certification body.

“This leaves consumers vulnerable in a profession where anyone can hang out their shingle and call themselves a counsellor.”

And while psychiatry and psychology are regulated through a system of professional association which requires them to have a minimum standard in their respective fields, people seeking counselling services are left out on a limb, not knowing what qualifications their provider may or may not have and what is or is not appropriate as a qualification.

“One hopes that all counsellors will benefit their clients and do no further emotional damage to a person in an already vulnerable state of mind. Unfortunately, in some cases unqualified counsellors can make the problems worse.”

“I would strongly recommend clients seek counselling from qualified individuals who associate themselves with either a recognized local or national counselling association or certification body,” said Dr Pelling.

According to Dr Pelling there are a number of organisations in Australia that seek to make it easier for consumers to find a qualified counsellor. In Australia, the main organisations seeking to increase counselling standards, and thus safeguard the public, are the Australian Board of Certified Counsellors (www.abcc.com.au), the Australian Counselling Association (http://www.theaca.net.au), and the Psychotherapy and Counselling Federation of Australia (www.pacfa.org.au).


“Unfortunately, these organizations do not always work together and competition and political positioning has resulted in substandard quality control of the counselling profession. This can and often does result in confusion and bad experiences for consumers of counselling services.”

Dr Pelling (UniSA), Dr Robyn Gillies (University of Queensland), and Dr Brian Sullivan (University of Queensland) strongly advocated for counsellors to adopt a cooperative professional approach at the first Psychotherapy and Counselling Federation of Australia conference held recently in Melbourne.

“We are proposing that the main counselling organisations work together to designate and promote a voluntary certification scheme that could be used by consumers to identify qualified counsellors of various levels in a nationally coordinated and cooperative manner,” Dr Pelling said.

“Ironically counsellors often help consumers develop their cooperation and interactive skills when they themselves are struggling to work together and interact for the benefit of counselling in Australia.”

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