The Covid-19 pandemic and lockdown restrictions stopped many practitioners offering face to face counselling to their clients.

To explore the effect this has had, we鈥檙e undertaking a new research project examining counsellors鈥� experiences of offering online counselling.聽

The study, conducted in partnership with the Open University, is looking for counsellors who have been offering online counselling since the pandemic began.

Understanding our members

Dr Clare Symons, our Head of Research, said: 鈥淭his new project is part of our efforts to understand the experience of our members during the current crisis.

鈥淲e want to understand more about your experiences and perceptions of offering online counselling so we can better understand your training needs.

鈥淲e also think it鈥檚 important to engage in research in this area so that your experience can inform understanding about what effective and ethical online counselling looks like.

鈥淲e want to understand more about the perceived opportunities and challenges of working in this way.

鈥淲e鈥檙e also hoping to learn something about how your experience of the pandemic impacts on your work with clients.鈥�

Experiences

Study researcher Dr Naomi Moller added: 鈥淲e are interested in the experiences of counsellors new to online counselling as well as those who were already seeing clients online.鈥�

Members wishing to take part will be directed to an online survey where you鈥檒l be asked to respond to seven open-ended questions about your experiences and perceptions of online counselling.

So we can understand something about who has taken part, you鈥檒l also be asked some demographic questions about your professional practice - for example, the years you鈥檝e worked as a counsellor.

, including the Open University ethical approval.