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Scope of Practice

SCOPE OF PRACTICE FOR REGISTERED CLINICAL COUNSELLORS

MISSION STATEMENT

The BC Association of Clinical Counsellors is a society of regulated Clinical Counsellors dedicated to providing the highest standard of professional counselling, consulting, assessment, testing and training services.  Members of the society act to enhance mental health by providing responsive, accountable, and ethical counselling, consulting, assessment, testing and training services to individuals, couples, families, and groups.                                  

SCOPE STATEMENT

“Clinical Counselling” means the assessment, evaluation, diagnosis and treatment of behavioural, cognitive, social, mental or emotional issues, problems or disorders, and the use of Clinical Counselling values, principles and treatment methods, including psychotherapy (1), to help individual, couple, family, and group clients understand, cope with and resolve their situation, in order to:

  1. enhance personal, couple, family, group, organizational or community growth and effectiveness;
  2. promote healthy interpersonal relationships;
  3. encourage self growth;
  4. sustain mental, emotional, physical and spiritual health.

(1)“Psychotherapy” means the treatment, by psychological means, of problems of an emotional nature in which a trained person deliberately establishes a professional relationship with the client with the object of removing, modifying or retarding existing symptoms, mediating disturbed patterns of behaviour, and promoting positive personality growth and development.

“Clinical Counselling Services” refers to one or more of the following:

  1. assessment, evaluation, diagnosis and treatment of individuals, couples, families and groups in a wide variety of methods and settings;
  2. strategic intervention to facilitate optimum growth and functioning in client’s lives;
  3. consultation and referral to appropriate client services which lie beyond the Registered Clinical Counsellor’s areas of expertise;
  4. provision of supervision and/or consultation to Clinical Counselling (and other) professional practitioners, students and supervisees;
  5. program development, research, teaching and contributions to the body of literature dedicated to Clinical Counselling practice;
  6. testing, consulting, mediation and coaching practices.

Approved by Board of Directors
October 26, 2003
JB/ma

For practical reasons, not all types of therapy or practice are listed in this Scope of Practice. Questions about a particular type of therapy may be directed to the Office of the Registrar. It is important to note that, even if a specific type of therapy or practice is technically permissible under our Scope of Practice, there remain ethical and other considerations regarding its potential appropriateness, depending on the context in which it may be used.