ABSTRACT
The question of counsellor competence has emerged as a pivotal issue in recent years. As counselling services have become more accountable to third party funding agencies, there has grown a need to demonstrate that their employees are capable of providing a professional service. Concerns over accountability have been exacerbated by rare but widely reported episodes of therapist abuse of clients. The proliferation of training courses has raised questions about how to define and assess the levels of knowledge and skill necessary for licensed practice. In Britain, there is now a government-funded body for establishing national standards for vocational qualifications in the field of counselling. Finally, the realisation that many counsellors do not operate in sufficiently supportive organisational environments, or may suffer burn-out at some point in their career, has introduced an awareness of the importance of contextual and developmental factors in the maintenance of therapist competence.
