Mick Cooper

University of Roehampton | RU · Department of Psychology

Addressing and accommodating client preferences in psychotherapy have been consistently associated with improved treatment outcomes; however, few clinically useful and psychometrically acceptable measures are available for this purpose. The aim of this study was to develop a brief, multidimensional clinical tool to help clients articulate the thera...

Aim/Purpose: The aim of this paper is to provide an accessible and practical introduction to conducting Client Helpfulness Interview (CHI) studies. These are qualitative interview studies that examine what particular groups of clients find helpful and unhelpful in counselling and psychotherapy. Methodological issues: Methodological and conceptual i...

The Goals Form is a brief outcome measure that can be used to assess, and track, the extent to which counselling and psychotherapy clients attain their personal goals for therapy. It is free to use under the Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International licence. A video of using the Goals Form, and setting goals in a relational way,...

Objective Assessing and accommodating patient preferences is integral to evidence-based practice. This qualitative study sought to explore patient perspectives and experiences of preference work in psychotherapy. Methods Participants were 13 UK-based patients who had completed up to 24 sessions of a collaborative–integrative psychotherapy. Ten par...

Introduction This research explored the views of staff in secondary schools on school counselling for young people. Data were drawn from the Effectiveness and Cost Effectiveness Trial of Humanistic Counselling in Schools (ETHOS) study, an RCT of school counselling across 18 state‐funded secondary schools in London. Methods Qualitative semi‐structu...

Training and accreditation standards play a critical role in the development of a research‐informed agenda. This commentary on Barkham et al. ( Counselling and Psychotherapy Research , 2024) discusses obstacles to fully integrating research into the training and standard agendas, and the potential role that the British Association for Counselling a...

The British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy (BACP) is the largest professional membership body within the field of counselling and psychological therapies in the UK, but there is a mismatch between its membership of >65,000 and its research impact. This article sets out a potential strategic direction as considered by an informal grou...

Relational depth (RD)—moments of profound connection and engagement between two people—is a humanistic–existential construct, showing preliminary association with psychological growth in psychotherapy. This research investigates the impact of RD, alongside relationship satisfaction and emotional intimacy, on subjective well-being in close relations...

This book shows why we need, and can create, a progressive politics that is profoundly informed by insights from the psychotherapeutic and psychological domain, moving us from a politics of blame to a politics of understanding.

As a child, I often wondered what the communist paradise would look like. For some reason, despite my family's atheism, I imagined lots of people wandering around on clouds (and eating lots of sweets) – clearly my religious education lessons had seeped in somewhere. But what did people actually do in this better world? How did they live? And what w...

Chapter 6 moves us into the second half of the book and, with it, a more specific vision for what a psychology-informed progressive world might look like, and the concrete steps that might get us there. In Chapter 5, we saw how, across different levels of organisation, increases in wellbeing were associated with more cooperative relationships. This...

This chapter follows on closely from Chapter 3. Having introduced a basic framework for understanding psychological functioning, I want to show how this framework can be extended to a conceptualisation of psychological wellbeing and distress. As with Chapter 3, I want to spend some time describing this theory, because the kind of progressive societ...

The aim of this book, as described the Introduction, is to develop a psychologically informed progressive vision. I want to show how we can envision society, and the people and relationships within it, if we integrate psychology into a progressive commitment to equality and social justice. To begin this journey, I want to discuss the development of...

Our review of socialist humanism has shown how a progressive approach can be developed with psychological understandings at its heart, and it introduced concepts that can be valuable to such an analysis. The aim of this chapter is to develop these starting points into a fully fleshed out psychological framework that can serve as the basis for a con...

As Katherine Trebeck of the Wellbeing Economy Alliance (WEAll) writes, ‘COVID-19 has revealed that enormous shifts in policy are possible. … Policies previously dismissed as unrealistic are being seriously discussed and levels of government intervention that would have been baulked at in many countries [like compulsory mask-wearing] are now being r...

So what can we do, concretely, to help take forward the psychology-informed progressive principles developed in the previous chapter? Without doubt, much progressive activism – and, when in power, policymaking and implementation – is already oriented towards such goals. As discussed in the previous chapter, for instance, a society that maximises be...

The previous chapter envisioned, conceptually, what a psychology-informed progressive society might look like. In this chapter, following the tradition of literary utopias, I want to take this description one step further by switching in to a narrative, fictional account of what it might be like to experience such a world. This chapter feels risky:...

Long before I studied psychology I was captivated by the idea of ‘multiple personalities’. Sybil, The Three Faces of Eve, The Minds of Billy Milligan: I found it fascinating to imagine a world ‘inside’ the human being that mirrored the world ‘outside’, with different personalities collaborating, fighting, and scheming against each other. Was it rea...

Pluralism offers a means of recognising the value of multiple voices and perspectives and has emerged as an increasingly significant guiding framework for making sense of the complexity and diversity of contemporary social life. Pluralistic Practice is an open access journal created with the intention of supporting the development of a global commu...

Objective: There is a growing interest in idiographic patient-reported outcome measures (I-PROMs) for routine outcome monitoring (ROM) and clinical feedback (CF) in psychotherapy, but to our knowledge, no systematic reviews of the empirical literature. Method: We conducted a systematic literature search for empirical papers investigating effects an...

Aim The aim of this study was to capture the most salient aspects of first‐session activities by a therapist who consistently had good clinical outcomes. Method Constructivist grounded theory was used to analyse the first three audio‐recorded psychotherapy sessions with two clients. Results The analysis generated 12 categories organised into thre...

The aim of this chapter is to show the alignment between a psychological understanding of the intrapersonal world (as described in Chapters 3 and 4), and a progressive understanding of the interpersonal, socioeconomic world. The chapter shows how the core concepts introduced in Chapters 3 and 4 – directionality, wellbeing as the realisation of dire...

The aim of this chapter is to describe, across different levels of organisation, the principles that are associated with positive change: that is, with the development of cooperation and synergy, and thereby greater overall benefit. The principles described in this chapter are: see the ‘bigger picture’ (that is, mentalisation); take responsibility...

The aim of this book is to show how psychological ideas and practices can be used to develop a progressive political vision that is comprehensive, coherent, and compelling. Alongside this, the book aims to show how a progressive perspective is fundamentally supported by theory and practices from the psychology field. The book starts by explaining w...

The aim of this chapter is to describe a comprehensive, detailed, and contemporary psychological framework that can serve as the basis for a progressive vision for society. This framework is based on the principle of psychological equality: that we should try to understand others as human beings like ourselves, with needs and wants that are underst...

This chapter focuses on five areas for activism and policy work that can be key levers to the implementation of a psychology-informed progressivism. These are concrete ways of implementing the cooperative principles discussed in Chapter 6. Action points for each strategy are given – for both policymakers and laypeople. The first strategy is positiv...

Building on the previous analysis (Chapter 3), the aim of this chapter is to provide a means of conceptualising wellbeing and distress that can underpin a psychology-informed progressivism. The chapter begins by defining psychological wellbeing in terms of the realisation of fundamental needs and wants – with distress as the failure to realise such...

The aim of this chapter is to explore the nature of a psychology-informed progressive utopia. That is, the kind of far future society which would allow for the full development of each individual, community, and the planet. The chapter begins by setting out why utopian thinking may be important for progressives, and then defines utopias in terms of...

This chapter discusses the development of the socialist humanist tradition: an international movement that advocated a humanistic psychological reading of Karl Marx’s work. In doing so, this chapter shows the depth, richness, and complexity of analysis that can be achieved by integrating humanistic psychology into a progressive political base, and...

In the tradition of literary utopias, this chapter presents a narrative, fictional account of what it might be like to actually experience the psychology-informed progressive society discussed in Chapter 8. That is, the chapter aims to give a concrete and vivid sense of what that better world might look and feel like. The focus is particularly on a...

To conclude the book, this chapter focuses on specific political strategies by which a psychology-informed progressive politics might be brought about. The chapter discusses collaboration across political parties, the development of contemporary fora in which such collaboration might happen, and the possibility of developing a progressive political...

In response to the increase in Routine Outcome Monitoring and Clinical Feedback, the Patient-Perceived Helpfulness of Measures Scale (ppHMS) was developed to assess the helpfulness—as perceived by patients—of using measures in psychological treatment. Study 1: The construct of patient-perceived helpfulness of measures was explored using thematic an...

Objectives The aim of the present research was to test the feasibility of a randomised controlled trial comparing five consecutive days of regular online jigsaw puzzling (JP) against a no‐treatment control group in improving mental well‐being outcomes in older adults. Methods Eighteen older adults (65–80 years) were randomly assigned to either the...

The aim of this study was to develop and validate the Responses to Personal Mortality Measure (RPMM), a new self-report tool to assess existential skills in relating to personal mortality. Items reflecting responses to personal mortality were generated and then selected through a rating process. They were further refined using Three-Step Test Inter...

Mental health and well‐being outcomes in psychotherapy and counselling have largely been studied through the use of standardised nomothetic measurement. A key limitation is that nomothetic measurement and current statistical analyses do not necessarily capture the outcomes of the complicated and individual psychotherapy processes. There is an incre...

Background: The Relational Depth Frequency Scale (RDFS) assesses moments of profound connection in psychotherapy, associated with therapeutic benefit. To date, the RDFS has not been tested for its retest reliability, divergent and criterion validity, and measurement invariance, nor has it been tested in stratified samples of psychotherapy patients...

The Cooper-Norcross Inventory of Preferences (C-NIP) is one of the most widely used measures of psychotherapy preferences. However, its psychometric properties have not been examined in non-Western samples. Research on disparities between the preferences of mental health professionals and their clients is also limited. We evaluated the C-NIP’s psyc...

We aimed to evaluate how the Authenticity Scale, a measure of authenticity based on humanistic psychology, functioned as an outcome measure for psychological therapies. Ninety participating clients completed the Authenticity Scale at set intervals throughout their therapy. We considered the measure’s reliability, construct validity, acceptability,...

Objective: Research into psychological interventions for cancer patients has focused on the effectiveness of different treatment methods. Investigating common factors across treatments, such as qualities within the therapeutic relationship, has been neglected. This study explores cancer patients' experiences of moments of profound contact and enga...

Mick Cooper is Professor of Counselling Psychology, as well as Acting Director of the Centre for Research in Psychological Wellbeing (CREW) at the University of Roehampton. Aside from being a research-active practitioner, with research interests in counselling with children and young people as well as humanistic, existential and relational approach...

Depression is a worldwide problem requiring more research on clinically effective treatments. This study was based on a conceptualization of the self as multivoiced: constituted of multiple autonomous “I-positions.” We aimed to investigate the relational patterns between voices in patients experiencing depression, and the changes which arise throug...

Pluralistic counselling and psychotherapy, as a form of practice, is a collaborative integrative approach that recognises that there are multiple valid perspectives on what is helpful for clients and that different therapeutic concepts and methods can be suitable and effective for different clients at different times. Key points include: • Plural...

Objective(s): To examine the psychometric properties of the idiographic Goal-Based Outcome (GBO) tool for young people: test-retest stability, convergent validity, and sensitivity to an intervention. Methods: This measure validation study used data from a randomized controlled trial of school-based humanistic counseling. We used multilevel analy...

Objective: This study aimed to assess the reliability, validity, and clinical utility of an idiographic, goal-focused patient-reported outcome measure: The Goals Form. Methods: Data were analyzed from 88 participants, across three samples, who had participated in collaborative-integrative psychotherapy at university-based clinics in the UK. The...

Shared decision-making about therapeutic methods has been proposed as a way of conceptualising, and assisting, collaboration in the therapeutic alliance. However, little is known about how psychotherapists actually create concrete, moment-by-moment opportunities for clients to share their ideas about what might be therapeutically helpful. We used c...

Idiographic patient‐reported outcome measures (I‐PROMs) are a growing set of individualized tools for use in routine outcome monitoring (ROM) in psychological therapies. This paper presents a position statement on their conceptualization, use, and analysis, based on contemporary evidence and clinical practice. Four problem‐based, and seven goal‐bas...

Objective: The Relational Depth Frequency Scale (RDFS) is a 6-item measure to assess the impact of relational depth experiences on psychotherapeutic outcomes. To date, the RDFS has only been validated in online samples of clinical and non-clinical individuals. This study aimed to examine the psychometric properties of the RDFS in clinical dyads of...

Aim The purpose of this study was to pilot a randomised controlled trial that aimed to test the hypothesis that counselling utilising a pluralistic framework was more effective than counselling as usual for young people experiencing issues as a result of their addiction. Method Sixty-four clients presenting with issues of addiction were allocated...

Obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) is a chronic, debilitating psychological condition. To date, there has been no published research exploring brief humanistic counselling as an intervention for OCD. This study presents a case study of an adolescent client with obsessive-compulsive difficulties (‘Sunil’) receiving school-based humanistic counselli...

The present study aimed to test the reliability and validity of the Person Centred and Experiential Psychotherapy Scale–Young Person version (PCEPS-YP). This is a newly developed and adapted 9-item scale which aims to measure counsellor competences in, and adherence to, person-centred practice, when working with adolescents. Counselling practice wa...

Parents and carers are likely to take on a significant responsibility for managing an adolescent's mental health and well‐being. Accordingly, their perceptions provide insight into the value of an intervention. This study explored parents' and carers' perceptions and expectations of school‐based humanistic counselling, as received by a socially div...

A pluralistic approach to coaching and coaching psychology is proposed, based on Cooper and McLeod's (2011) pluralistic counselling and psychotherapy. Since we live in increasing complexity, it can be assumed that there are many right ways to coaching. The pluralistic approach suggests that instead of leaving the coach responsible for choosing the...

The Greek edition of the ‘Handbook of person-centred psychotherapy and counselling’ (edited by Mick Cooper, Maurren O’Hara, Peter F. Schmid, Arthur C. Bohart) by Papazisi publications.

The adoption of a pluralistic perspective on research design, processes of data collection and analysis and dissemination of findings, has the potential to enable psychotherapy research to make a more effective contribution to building a just society. A review of the key features of the concept of pluralism is followed by a historical analysis of t...

Pre‐pandemic research has suggested that video counselling is as effective as face‐to‐face practice. However, the mass migration of therapy to the online video domain as a result of the COVID‐19 pandemic makes it essential to interrogate the evidence base. This paper provides a critical commentary on how video therapy is defined/labelled, the curre...

Within the UK, there has been a growth of services delivering online therapy to young people. This study identifies the factors that young people find helpful and unhelpful in synchronous text‐based therapy (STBT), and the processes by which these factors may be of value. Thirteen young people, aged between 14 and 18, were interviewed synchronously...

Research suggests that bullying is one of the most common presenting issues for young people accessing counselling. In this study, we explored helpful aspects of counselling for young people who have experienced bullying. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 10 participantsand analysed using thematic analysis. Participants identified five...

School counselling services are a common response to mental health and wellbeing challenges, not least those caused by COVID-19 and lockdown. New research findings have shown us exactly when and how counselling can be most effective, Professor Mick Cooper explains.

A conceptual framework rooted in existentialism is presented to unify psychological and sociopolitical perspectives. Human beings are directional, with well‐being the actualization of highest order directions. Distress emerges through external blocking of directions, or through dysergetic or ineffective internal configurations. Hence, social justic...

This study aimed to investigate (a) what clients’ within-treatment activity preferences were; (b) whether match between preferences and psychotherapy approach predicted outcomes and alliance; (c) whether scores on preference dimensions, per se, predicted outcomes and alliance. Participants were 470 clients engaging in one of five approaches with tr...

This study aimed to investigate (a) what clients’ within-treatment activity preferences were; (b) whether match between preferences and psychotherapy approach predicted outcomes and alliance; (c) whether scores on preference dimensions, per se, predicted outcomes and alliance. Participants were 470 clients engaging in one of five approaches with tr...

Background: The i-THRIVE Programme is a needs-based model of care, based on the THRIVE Framework, that is being implemented across the UK with the aim of improving outcomes for children and young people's mental health and wellbeing. This study aimed to investigate the impact that this programme has on accessibility and quality of care, as viewed...

Background About one in seven adolescents have a mental health disorder in England, UK. School counselling is one of the most common means of trying to address such a problem. We aimed to determine the effectiveness and cost-effectiveness of school-based humanistic counselling (SBHC) for the treatment of psychological distress in young people in En...

This study explored helpful and unhelpful processes in psychological therapy for women with a diagnosis of substance use disorder (SUD). Semi-structured interviews were conducted with eight women, seven of whom were white; and analysed using interpretative phenomenological analysis. Three superordinate themes emerged: What words can’t express – fin...

The multivoicedness of the self has become an important theoretical concept that is influencing modern psychotherapy research, with consensus that individuals should be studied within their social contexts. However, there are few qualitative tools that can help to develop in-depth, “thick” understandings of this multivoicedness. The qualitative met...