The Attitudes of Counselling Psychologist Trainees (CPTs) on Integrating Neuroscience into Counselling Psychology (CoP)

In recent decades, neuroscience has made significant progress in understanding psychological concepts like attachment and trauma and helped facilitate the work of psychologists in the therapy room. By utilising neuroscience knowledge, advanced techniques and therapeutic tools like neuroimaging and non-invasive brain stimulation, valuable insights have been gained in psychology. In addition, neuroscience has also contributed to our knowledge of biological concepts like epigenetics and neuroplasticity and their reciprocal impact on subjective experience. Given the pluralistic nature of counselling psychology (CoP) and its goal of facilitating unique growth and subjective change in individuals, integrating neuroscience into CoP would be a compelling avenue to explore. So far, no research has explored this integration from the perspective of trainee counselling psychologists.

Accordingly, this project aimed to identify Counselling Psychologists Trainees’ (CPTs) attitudes on integrating neuroscience into CoP. Using a pragmatic philosophical stance and within a critical realist research paradigm, data collection gathered information from 16 participants using three focus groups of one hour and a half. Data were then analysed using reflexive thematic analysis.

Three overarching themes and nine themes were identified. The first overarching theme, ‘Attitudes on neuroscience’ included three themes, namely: ‘Do we “really […] really” know what neuroscience is? Between uncertainty and a lack of knowledge’, ‘Neuroscience: a persona non grata’ and ‘Neuroscience has a lot to offer’. The second overarching theme, ‘Integration between the good, the bad, the ugly and the existing’, encompassed four themes: ‘A positive attitude towards integration’, ‘A rejecting attitude

towards integrating neuroscience into CoP’, ‘Neuroscience is already here: Let's name the elephant in the room!’ and ‘What is needed before the integration?’. The third overarching theme, ‘On being a CPT and identifying with CoP ethos and values’, consisted of two themes: ‘CoP's defensiveness might drift us away from what it stands for’ and ‘Who are we? An identity crisis’.

The study has shown that the attitudes of counselling psychology trainees towards integrating neuroscience into CoP were similar to those found in previous research. These attitudes included concern, enthusiasm, openness, and fear. The research also added to the literature on the novel topic of integration and suggested further research to explore and perhaps implement the integration. The study might help change policies within universities by integrating neuroscience into the CoP curriculum to encourage trainees to enhance their neuroscience knowledge and have access to a broader choice of neuroscience-related careers.