Abstract
This portfolio brings together my personal and professional development over the course of training to become a counselling psychologist. It presents three dossiers concerned with the academic work, therapeutic practice and research I have completed over the last three years. The academic dossier consists of three selected essays. The first is a review of an empirical paper about whether a therapist’s conscious identification with a client affects their ability to sense and convey unconditional positive regard. The second essay uses clinical material to argue a case for how I would understand and work with a client diagnosed with borderline personality disorder when practising psychodynamically. The third essay argues that the value base of counselling psychology is compatible with adopting a cognitive behavioural approach to working with clients who have been diagnosed with anorexia nervosa. The therapeutic dossier provides an account of the context of practice and the experience I gained in each of the three clinical placements I completed. It also includes my final clinical paper, which reflects on my personal and professional development over the course of my training. Finally, the research dossier consists of a literature review and two pieces of empirical research. The review evaluates empirical literature in order to determine whether there is reason to believe that racism affects the process and outcome of therapy. The first empirical piece is an interpretative phenomenological analysis of minority racial group clients’ experiences of therapy with their white therapists. The second piece is a quantitative study that aimed to develop a measure of minority racial group clients’ perceptions of subtle racism in therapy with their white therapists. Pseudonyms have been used throughout the portfolio and any information that could identify clients, research participants or placements has been removed or altered in order to protect anonymity and ensure confidentiality.