Counselling Psychologists' Lived Experiences of Engaging with Social Justice

Date
2013-09-03
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Abstract
It has been emphasized repeatedly in the counselling psychology literature that the profession needs to re-commit to addressing the needs of the more vulnerable members of society and search for ways to action that include systemic and social change (Arthur & Collins, 2010). As such, counselling psychologists have been urged to integrate social justice into their professional identities and practice. The current study utilized descriptive phenomenological methodology to explore six counselling psychologists’ lived experiences of engaging in social justice, in an effort to guide a professional identity for counselling psychology that embraces social justice and expand the definition of counselling psychology practice to explicitly include social justice action. The results from this research highlight the profound calling and commitment that these counselling psychologists have for promoting and working towards social justice. Participants shared the many ways that this identification with social justice shapes their professional and personal lives, offering examples of how social justice oriented practice can look like within clinical, educational, and research roles. In exploring the experiences of these social justice leaders, it became clear that they have benefited greatly from this professional identification with social justice in the form of increased motivation, satisfaction, and meaning within their work. In order for counselling psychology to more fully embrace a social justice orientation, further research is needed that strengthens the connections between the work of counselling psychologists and issues of oppression, investigates the effectiveness of incorporating social justice practices, and exemplifies more concrete ways of integrating social justice within counselling psychology’s professional identity and roles.
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General, Educational Psychology
Citation
Kennedy, B. (2013). Counselling Psychologists' Lived Experiences of Engaging with Social Justice (Doctoral thesis, University of Calgary, Calgary, Canada). Retrieved from https://prism.ucalgary.ca. doi:10.11575/PRISM/25476