Making sense of mental health: a qualitative study of student counsellors

Abstract

ABSTRACT More and more people in the UK have poor mental health. Consequently, there is a growing demand for mental health professionals such as counsellors and psychotherapists. The aim of this study was to explore how trainee counsellors make sense of mental health in general and concepts like disorder, diagnosis and treatment in particular. We employ semi-structured interviews to explore what seven UK-based trainee counsellors thought and felt about mental health and disorders and how this affects their motives and intentions in relation to practice. A four-dimensional “Folk Psychology Model” (pathologising, moralising, medicalising and psychologising) provides a useful framework to illustrate and explain tension, complexity, diversity, contradiction and confusion among trainee counsellors' views. These views reflect more general contested epistemological, and perhaps even ontological beliefs, operating within and between relevant parent disciplines and professions about the mind and mental health.