Abstract
General Abstract: The portfolio is introduced by charting my journey to counselling psychology and outlining the three dossiers to the portfolio. The dossiers are composed of academic, therapeutic and research work. The academic dossier consists of three essays. The essays look at how psychotherapeutic theory relates to practice and how human distress can be understood and helpfully responded to. The therapeutic dossier introduces the three placements I attended over the three and a half years of the course and outlines the nature of therapeutic work I engaged with. It also includes my final clinical paper which reflects on my development as a counselling psychologist and how it shaped how I view and work with people in distress. The portfolio finishes with the research dossier which is divided into a literature review and two empirical qualitative studies. The central theme of the research endeavour is an exploration of materialism within personal, social and cultural contexts. The literature review aims to draw together social and individual levels of analysis in understanding the effect of materialism on wellbeing. The first piece of research uses narrative analysis to explore the construct of materialism and its meanings in the context of participants’ life stories. The second piece of research uses thematic analysis from a critical realist position to explore middle class individuals’ experience of living in a material world.