The professional identity of Australian counselling psychologists
| Friday, July 26, 2024 |
| 5:00 PM - 5:30 PM |
Overview
30 Minute Presentation
Presenter
Mr Michael Di Mattia
The professional identity of Australian counselling psychologists
Abstract
The struggle to develop a clear professional identity has been a global struggle for counselling psychologists' (Goodyear et al, 2016; Hutman et al., 2016). Professional identity has been identified as an issue for Australian counselling psychologists (Davis-McCabe et al., 2019; Di Mattia & Grant, 2016; Di Mattia & Davis-McCabe, 2017; Meteyard & O'Hara, 2015), yet there remains little research exploring how counselling psychologists understand and describe their professional identity. This presentation will describe the results of a study that explored the professional identity of Australian counselling psychologists. Eighteen counselling psychologists were interviewed regarding their experience and perception of professional identity. Reflexive thematic analysis generated five themes that captured the ways in which participants describe their professional identity. These themes will be explored in this presentation. In addition, the presentation will address how the professional identity of counselling psychologists can be strengthened in the future.
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Michael Di Mattia is a Senior Lecturer and Counselling Psychologist with more than two decades of experience, across clinical practice, teaching and research. He has worked as a practitioner in a range of settings, including community health, private practice and tertiary counselling. Michael has worked as a lecturer in several universities, teaching into postgraduate psychology and counselling programs. Michael is a Fellow of the Australian Psychological Society (APS) and a Fellow of the APS College of Counselling Psychologists, where he served as National Chair from 2011-2016. He was the recipient of the College’s Award of Distinction in 2019, in recognition of his contribution to the field of counselling psychology and the college.
