William West

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William verified their affiliation via an institutional email.

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• Bsc MA PhD
• Professor at University of Chester

This paper briefly explores the author's experiences from over 50 years in nature and other sacred sites and reflects on the implications for the theory and practice of therapy. KEY WORDS: Nature; spiritual experience, weeping William West, who is semi-retired, is currently Visiting Professor in counselling and spirituality at the University of C...

Greg Nolan and William West reflect on the contemporary impact of rapid global social change on individual and collective cultural contexts of mental health, faith and spiritual sense-making. These issues remain of great importance as Western Europe, Turkey, Greece, Jordan and other countries experience the challenge of what is seen as mass migrati...

This paper presents the findings from the second of an ongoing series of focus group encounters between spiritually minded counsellors and those engaged in pastoral care within a religious tradition. For this study we recruited five Jungian influenced therapists and three pastoral care workers two of whom were explicitly Buddhists. The data was ana...

In 2006/7 I did some preliminary interviews with counsellor trainers in various countries (Russia, India, Kenya and England) intending to develop a research project exploring how Western counsellor training is delivered in differing countries and cultures. It soon became apparent that this was too ambitious, too big a task for one person or even a...

The challenge I SPEND quite a bit of my working life helping new researchers struggle with the challenges of making qualitative method-ological choices for their research projects. Many new researchers come to research with fixed ideas about what they want to research and how. These ideas are often overly ambi-tious and the research methodologies c...

Content and Focus In this paper I explore the vexed questìoH of how we choose a suitable methodology when undertaking qualitative research in counselling psychology. Drawing on computing I put forward an algorithm in the form of a set of questions to help make the decision. These include the volume, quality and analysis of the expected data, and th...

Background This paper explores how we make use, and access, the tacit dimension within qualitative research into counselling psychology. Aims and Scope It considers how to access the tacit dimension including its connection to the body, countertransference and Gendlin’s ‘felt sense’; how to use the tacit dimension within research planning; data ga...

Content and Focus In this paper, we use ‘depression’ as a vehicle for suggesting that current approaches to diagnosing and managing ‘common mental health disorders’ are increasingly untenable in a time of cuts to health care expenditure and changing perspectives on mental health and well-being. We suggest that a collective, community-based response...

In this article, we reflect on some key dilemmas in counselling psychology research in the current context of proliferation of research agendas, stakeholders and other interested parties. Our focus is on the challenges faced by the novice researcher who is often expected to begin research with only a brief training. We offer a pragmatic approach to...

The whole approach of counselling researchers to ethics may be assumed to have been improving in recent years, especially with the BACP research guidelines (Bond, 20043. Bond , T . 2004. Ethical guidelines for researching counselling and psychotherapy. Counselling and Psychotherapy Research, 4(2): 4–9. [Taylor & Francis Online]View all references)...

This paper explores how the culture of the researcher can influence the interpretation of data collected using interview transcripts from a study into psychotherapy and spirituality. In the original study 18 psychotherapists and counsellors who were also members of the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers) were interviewed about how their faith im...

A sample of 23 students – 12 women, 11 men – enrolled on a two-year part-time master's course in counselling studies in Nairobi, Kenya, took part in a focus group discussion about their expectations of the course. The key themes that emerged were: adding to their skills and status and challenges to the counsellors. The findings are discussed within...

In a world that is becoming consistently more dependent upon technology, this paper intends to urge researchers to be appropriately cautious when designing projects that utilise new media. It does this by frankly discussing a research project that turned out to be a resounding failure due to a lack of forward thinking. The study intended to recreat...

This paper draws on the authors' recent experience of piloting qualitative research into helpful and hindering events in supervision using interpersonal process recall with three supervisor-supervisee dyads. This paper presents in some detail the findings from one dyad. The authors draw on their experience of the research to raise questions relatin...

The important and engaging book encourages counsellors, psychotherapists, pastoral care workers and others involved in the helping professions to consider the significance of spirituality and spiritual experiences both for their clients and for the practice of therapy. Drawing on the author's wide experience of researching, teaching and practicing...

The concept of ‘culture’ is gaining in significance within the discourse of counselling and psychotherapy, as a means of making sense of the ways in which shared identities and behaviours are constructed and maintained. The selection of papers included within this Theme Section explore different aspects of the use of the idea of culture within coun...

Psychotherapists in training and beyond are expected to receive regular clinical supervision. In Britain many practitioners are required to have life long supervision. This paper draws on recent research into supervision, and highlights a number of areas that have been identified as problematic, including: power and control, spirituality, touch, et...

This paper explores how the culture of the researcher can influence the interpretation of data collected in a qualitative study into counselling and spirituality. Counsellors or psychotherapists who were also members of the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers) were interviewed about how their faith impacts on their therapeutic practice. The findi...

This paper raises a number of dilemmas in relation to the ethical practice of counselling, counsellor training and research and evaluation of counselling which reflect the author's increasing concerns about therapeutic ethics. A number of relevant issues are explored to develop awareness and understanding of ethical matters, though this is in the s...

This paper explores forgiveness, which is a key component of spiritual pastoral care. Encouraging forgiveness is also one of the spiritual interventions most frequently used by psychotherapists. However, although forgiveness has been explored as an element in psychotherapy, the models generated have had little impact on research and practice. Recen...

This paper explores forgiveness, which is a key component of spiritual pastoral care. Encouraging forgiveness is also one of the spiritual interventions most frequently used by psychotherapists. However, although forgiveness has been explored as an element in psychotherapy, the models generated have had little impact on research and practice. Recen...

The grounded theory approach has become established as the qualitative methodology of choice for many counselling and psychotherapy researchers. It is now becoming apparent to many researchers that there are significant difficulties associated with defining what the grounded theory method actually is, and how is should be implemented. In addition,...

Seven counsellors were interviewed about their experiences of learning and applying a new approach to therapy: the psychodynamic-interpersonal model. These interviews were analysed using grounded theory — a qualitative approach. Under the core category of ‘changing counselling practice: applying the PI model of therapy’, the material was organised...

Nineteen Quakers who are also counsellors or psychotherapists were interviewed in a qualitative phenomenological study about the impact, if any, of their spiritual beliefs on their work. The research was conducted using an approach based on Moustakas' heuristics. The spiritual faith of the therapists impacted on their work in several ways: their se...

Nineteen Quakers who are also counsellors or psychotherapists were interviewed in a qualitative pkenomenological study about the impact, if any, of their spiritual beliefs on their work. The research was conducted using an approach based on Moustakas' heuristics. The spiritual faith of the therapists impacted on their work in several ways: their se...

A qualitative study of 30 counsellors or psychotherapists whose work also includes healing was conducted using semi-structured interviews. Seven of the participants then joined the researcher in a human inquiry group. Participants in the research had been practitioners for a mean of over 10 years. The main themes that emerged were: the transition b...

The nature of human inquiry groups and their use in counselling research are explored. A key feature of such a group is that the details of what is researched and how it is researched are decided by the group rather than by the researcher alone. Human inquiry groups proceed through a process of cycling. The first stage involves group members gather...

One-hundred and fifty ex-clients of 17 Energy Stream Psychotherapists were sent a questionnaire about their experience of their therapy. Sixty-eight clients completed the questionnaire. Of these 77% were highly satisfied or satisfied with their therapy. The frequency of use of some key Reichian psychotherapy techniques was explored. They were found...