units

PSY4140

Faculty of Medicine, Nursing and Health Sciences

18 September 2017 22 December 2024
Monash University

Postgraduate - Unit

This unit entry is for students who completed this unit in 2015 only. For students planning to study the unit, please refer to the unit indexes in the the current edition of the Handbook. If you have any queries contact the managing faculty for your course or area of study.

print version

6 points, SCA Band 1, 0.125 EFTSL

Refer to the specific census and withdrawal dates for the semester(s) in which this unit is offered.

LevelPostgraduate
FacultyFaculty of Medicine, Nursing and Health Sciences
Organisational UnitSchool of Psychological Sciences
OfferedMonash Online Teaching Period 4 2015 (Online)
Coordinator(s)Dr Matthew Mundy

Synopsis

This unit covers all important introductory aspects of counselling. Themes to be covered include theories of counselling, evaluation of how personal beliefs and values influence the counselling process and legal and ethical issues in counselling psychology. Students will be provided with a broad overview of the field of counselling psychology and will be expected to be able to compare and contrast different theoretical perspectives and reflect on how these perspectives would influence their (potential) counselling style and practice.

Outcomes

Upon successful completion of this unit, students should be able to:

  1. Explain and contrast a variety of theoretical approaches to counselling including individual, group and systems approaches.
  2. Critically analyse specific concepts and techniques used by various theoretical approaches to counselling.
  3. Recognise and reflect upon the influence of personal values and beliefs on the counselling process.
  4. Identify and provide solutions to ethical and legal issues, and develop skills in ethical decision making in counselling.
  5. Explain which theoretical perspectives within counselling (including concepts and techniques) best fits with the students' own values, beliefs and experiences and therefore would be more likely to be adopted by the student to use within their own potential counselling practice in the future.
  6. Communicate the importance of the guidelines available to psychologists, and explain where to access the appropriate and relevant guidelines.

Assessment

6 x Secure online exams (30 minutes each) (5% each) (30%)
Reflective clinical commentary x 2 (500 words each) (10% each) (20%)
Short essay (1,000 words) (20%)
Simulated counselling session with written summary (10 minutes) (750 words) (30%)

Workload requirements

Students should expect to spend an average of 15-20 hours per week on this unit. This time will cover:

  1. video lecture materials (1 hour);
  2. synchronous & asynchronous discussion (1-2 hours);
  3. synchronous web-based 'class-time' for skills-based activities (2 hours);
  4. weekly readings (4-5 hours);
  5. weekly skills-based assessment tasks (4-6 hours); and
  6. content-based assessment (4-5 hours, including revision and formative assessment).

See also Unit timetable information

Chief examiner(s)

Dr Matthew Mundy

This unit applies to the following area(s) of study

Psychology

Prerequisites

PSY4051, PSY4131.

Co-requisites

Must be enrolled in course 4525.