CPCAB Counselling Research Award
Making research accessible

The 2021 award was won by Amrita Kaur Sohal for her research: 'A Therapy for the Worried Well? A Longitudinal Analysis of the Effectiveness of Person-Centred Therapy within a Sample of Suicidal Clients'.

Amrita completed her Masters at The University of Nottingham and works as a therapist with young homeless people for a voluntary organisation.

Watch Amrita discussing her research. 

The 2020 award was won by Kirstin Bicknell for her research 'Laughter in Therapy: An Exploration of How Therapists Experience Client Laughter'.

Watch Kirsten discussing her research

The 2019 award was won by Dr Peter Blundell for his research titled 'Responding to boundary Issues: A Qualitative Study'.

Dr Blundell is a lecturer at Liverpool John Moores University. He teaches on the MA in Counselling and Psychotherapy Practice, which includes supervising students through their own research projects. Peter completed his PhD at Manchester Metropolitan University and runs a private practice in Liverpool.

Watch Peter discussing his research.

The 2018 award was won by Sally O'Keeffe for her research: 'A qualitative study exploring types of dropout in adolescents receiving therapy for depression'. Sally is studying for a PhD at the University College London and Anna Freud National Centre for Children and Families, where she is a research officer and tutor.  

The research used data gathered from the Improving Mood with Psychoanalytic and Cognitive Therapies (IMPACT) trial, which was the largest ever clinical trial of psychological therapies for adolescent depression in Europe.

Sally says: " It was a privilege to carry out this research, to learn what it means to ‘drop out’ from the perspectives of both adolescents and their therapists. I am delighted to win this award, as it shows recognition of the value of including the perspectives of young people and clients about their experiences of treatment.”

Watch Sally discussing her research.

The 2017 award was won by Tracey Fuller, an education teaching fellow and doctoral researcher at the University of Sussex, for 'The Trust is the Work: Exploring how school counsellors maintain alliances with young people when sharing information because of safeguarding concerns. A Phronetic Case Study’.

Tracey's research explores information sharing and safeguarding concerns for school counsellors and was conducted in several school projects run by the charity Place2Be. She says: “It came out of my experience of working as a school counsellor and how stressful those situations can be when you’re trying to keep an alliance going with a young person when you may be having to share information in order to keep them safe.”

Watch Tracey discussing her research.

The 2016 was won by Marta Shepherd, a graduate from the University of Leicester, for 'It's like I'm sitting in front of myself’: an exploration of therapists' experiences of countertransference when working with parallel client issues'.

Watch Marta discussing her research.