Why professional leaders must champion counselling, use their professional titles proudly, and stop perpetuating the idea that counselling needs another identity to be valued.
In 2019, Fiona Griffith published Counselling: Recognising Our Profession in Its Own Right, an important contribution to the ongoing conversation about the identity and recognition of counselling in Australia. Griffith explored the need for counselling to be understood and valued as a profession in its own right, rather than as something that sits in the shadow of other therapeutic professions such as psychotherapy, psychology and social work.
Griffith’s work highlighted the importance of counselling being recognised from within the profession itself, as she wrote, “Counselling as a profession had been validated from within.” This remains a significant point. Professional recognition is not simply something bestowed upon a profession by external organisations, policymakers or the public. It is also shaped by how practitioners understand, describe and represent their own work.
The question remains: are counsellors doing enough to champion counselling as a distinct and valuable profession?
If Counsellors Don’t Champion Counselling, Who Will?
Counselling has an important place in Australia’s mental health and therapeutic landscape. Counsellors undertake professional training, work within ethical frameworks, develop therapeutic competencies and support people experiencing a wide range of emotional, psychological and relational difficulties.
Yet counselling’s professional identity can become blurred when it is consistently presented alongside other disciplines without sufficient attention to what makes counselling distinctive. While there are areas of overlap between counselling, psychotherapy, psychology and social work, for example, this does not mean that counselling lacks its own identity, knowledge base, professional standards or scope of practice.
Griffith’s reference to counselling having “distinct and specific parameters” invites consideration of what happens when those parameters are not clearly articulated or confidently communicated.
If counsellors do not consistently identify themselves as counsellors, explain what counselling offers and advocate for the profession, the public cannot be expected to have a clear understanding of who counsellors are.
Professional identity is strengthened when practitioners name their profession with confidence. It is weakened when they inadvertently suggest that counselling and counsellors need to be described as something else to be taken seriously.
Registered Clinical Counsellor: A Title to Be Proud Of
A professional title is more than a label. It communicates professional identity, registration status and accountability. It helps the public understand who a practitioner is and the professional framework within which they work.
A therapeutic orientation describes an approach to therapeutic work, while a professional designation, such as Registered Clinical Counsellor or Registered Counsellor, identifies a practitioner’s professional registration. Both can be valuable, but they serve different purposes.
Both descriptions can be meaningful, and practitioners may appropriately use more than one descriptor when explaining their work. However, they are not interchangeable. A therapeutic orientation does not replace a professional designation, just as a particular therapeutic modality does not, in itself, identify a practitioner’s profession.
When professionals consistently foreground a therapeutic orientation while leaving their registered professional designation unacknowledged, an opportunity to promote counselling is lost.
This matters particularly when practitioners hold leadership positions within professional associations and education settings and when they represent the interests of counsellors. The language used by professional leaders helps shape how the profession is understood, both internally and externally.
If you are a Registered Clinical Counsellor, say so. Be proud of the designation you have earned. Use it in your professional biography, on your website, in your public speaking and when representing the profession.
There is nothing lesser about being a counsellor. Counsellors should not need to distance themselves from their professional title to establish their credibility.
Stop Treating Counselling as Something That Needs to Become Something Else
Counselling, psychotherapy, psychology and social work share common ground. All involve therapeutic relationships, ethical responsibilities and a commitment to supporting emotional, psychological and relational health and wellbeing. Depending on their training, experience and scope of practice, practitioners may draw on similar theoretical frameworks and therapeutic approaches.
Recognising these overlaps, however, does not require professional distinctions to be collapsed or one professional identity to be treated as more desirable than another.
Counselling does not need to be repositioned as psychotherapy, psychology or social work to be valuable. Nor does it need to borrow the language of another profession to communicate the depth, complexity or significance of its work.
Counsellors work with trauma, grief, relationships, anxiety, emotional distress, identity, life transitions and many other experiences that affect people’s lives. Their work can be deeply relational, theoretically informed and clinically complex. The value of that work does not depend on whether it is described using a different professional title.
When counselling is repeatedly framed as something that must become, align itself with, or be subsumed under another identity to achieve recognition, the very hierarchy that needs to be challenged risks being reinforced.
The task is not to argue that counselling is superior to psychotherapy, psychology or social work, or to deny the connections between them. It is to recognise that counselling deserves to be understood on its own terms.
Counsellors can acknowledge professional overlap while maintaining a distinct identity and working collaboratively with other therapeutic professions.
Professional Leaders and Educators Have a Responsibility to Lead
Professional leadership carries responsibilities beyond individual practice. Leaders help shape professional culture, establish expectations and influence how a discipline is represented to members, students, stakeholders, policymakers and the wider community. This makes professional language especially important.
When leaders speak on behalf of counsellors, their professional titles and public descriptions can either reinforce counselling’s identity or inadvertently obscure it. The more visible a leader is, the greater the opportunity to model professional pride and clarity.
This is not about policing how individual practitioners choose to describe their therapeutic approach. Practitioners should be able to communicate their interests, theoretical orientations and areas of specialisation. It is about recognising that leadership roles bring an additional responsibility to make the profession itself visible.
If counselling is to be recognised and respected, those entrusted with representing it must actively champion it. This includes using professional designations where appropriate, articulating the value of counselling, supporting the development of professional standards and ensuring that counselling is not treated as a secondary identity in discussions about therapeutic practice.
It also means being mindful of the messages conveyed when a professional title is omitted in favour of another description. Even without any intention to diminish counselling, repeated omissions can contribute to a culture in which the profession becomes less visible.
Leadership is not only about what professional leaders advocate for through education, formal statements and policy submissions. It is also about what they model through everyday professional communication.
Own Your Title. Promote Your Profession.
Imagine what could happen if every counsellor confidently identified themselves by their professional designation, explained what their training equipped them to do, and actively promoted the value of counselling to the public.
Imagine if counselling was consistently named and represented in professional discussions, public education, mental health advocacy and conversations about the future of therapeutic services in Australia.
Imagine if emerging practitioners entered the profession with a clear sense of its identity, history, competencies and contribution, rather than feeling that they needed to adopt another professional label to establish credibility. These are not merely questions of terminology. They are questions about professional confidence, visibility and the future of counselling.
Over several decades, the establishment of professional associations, registration pathways, scopes of practice, ethical frameworks and competency standards has contributed to the development of counselling as a recognised professional discipline in Australia. The continuing challenge is to ensure that these developments translate into a clear and confident professional identity, understood by practitioners, educators, policymakers and the public.
Professional recognition requires ongoing work. It involves research, education, advocacy, professional development and engagement with the systems that shape mental health care. It also requires counsellors to recognise their own role in strengthening the profession.
Counsellors cannot expect others to consistently recognise their profession if they do not consistently identify and promote it themselves.
What Can Counsellors Do to Strengthen Their Professional Identity?
Strengthening counselling’s professional identity does not rest solely with professional associations and their leaders. Individual counsellors can also take practical steps to make the profession more visible and help the public understand their professional designation.
Counsellors can:
- Use their correct professional designation. Include the applicable registration title in professional biographies, website profiles, email signatures and introductions, in accordance with the requirements of their professional association.
- Check directory listings. Ensure that profiles in professional association directories, therapist directories and referral networks accurately identify their professional designation, rather than relying solely on a therapeutic orientation or area of specialisation.
- Review CPD and conference biographies. When registering for professional development events, submitting speaker biographies or participating in panels, check that the professional title is recorded accurately and visibly.
- Identify themselves in professional discussions. When introducing themselves at conferences, training events, networking meetings or interprofessional gatherings, name counselling as their profession.
- Promote counselling in public communication. Use websites, articles, podcasts, social media and community education to explain what counselling offers and the contribution counsellors make to mental health and wellbeing.
- Support professional advocacy. Engage with professional associations, contribute to consultations and support initiatives that improve public understanding and recognition of counselling.
These actions may seem small, but professional identity is built through repeated, everyday choices. When counsellors consistently identify their profession, and professional organisations and educators reinforce that identity, counselling becomes easier for the public and other professionals to recognise and understand.
Owning a professional title is not simply about using particular words. It is about taking an active role in ensuring that counselling remains visible, valued and represented in its own right.
Professional Pride Begins at the Top
Professional associations and education providers have an important role in supporting the identity, credibility and development of the professions they represent. Their leaders and educators are particularly well placed to demonstrate what it means to value a professional designation and advocate for the practitioners who hold it.
This is an opportunity for all counsellors, but particularly for those in positions of influence, to reflect on the language they use and the professional identities they foreground.
Are they making counselling visible? Are they communicating its contribution with clarity? Are they helping practitioners feel proud of their designation? And are they modelling the professional confidence counsellors want to see across the sector?
These questions are not intended to diminish individual practitioners or the many valuable therapeutic orientations they bring to their work. Rather, they invite counsellors to consider how their individual choices contribute to the collective identity of counselling.
A profession becomes more visible when its members are willing to stand behind its name. It becomes more coherent when its leaders model that commitment. And it becomes better understood when the people who represent it consistently communicate what it is, what it offers and why it matters.
Let Counsellors Recognise Counselling in Its Own Right
Counselling deserves to be recognised as a profession in its own right. It has a meaningful contribution to make to mental health care, therapeutic practice and the wellbeing of individuals, families and communities.
Counsellors do not strengthen counselling by suggesting that it needs another identity to be taken seriously. They strengthen it by understanding its history, articulating its professional standards, communicating its contribution and taking pride in the work counsellors do.
There is room for professional overlap, collaboration and diverse therapeutic approaches. There is also room, and a clear need, for counselling to have a confident and distinct professional identity.
For those who are Registered Clinical Counsellors or Registered Counsellors, this begins with something simple: own your title (Griffith, 2019). Use it proudly. Help the public understand it. When in a position to represent counselling, make sure the counselling title is visible.
If counsellors want counselling to be recognised in its own right, they must be willing to recognise it in their own words, their professional choices and their leadership.
Counselling is not a lesser profession. It is a profession worth championing.
References
Griffith, F. (2019). Counselling: Recognising Our Profession in Its Own Right. Psychotherapy and Counselling Today. PACFA. https://www.fgriffith.id.au/counselling-recognising-our-profession-in-its-own-right/
