What is Counselling

Many life experiences can present us with changes and stressors that seem overwhelming and can interfere with day-to-day life and wellbeing. Counselling provides a supportive and safe environment where issues can be clarified, options and ways of navigating these can be explored, and effective strategies can be developed that meet the needs of each client in bringing about positive change. 

It can also encourage you to become aware of different feelings, learn new communication skills, better-coping skills, strengthen your ideas of self-worth, make more useful decisions, and change a behaviour that gets you into ‘trouble’. A counsellor will not tell you how to resolve these difficulties – they don’t give advice – but they will help and support you to see things more clearly and maybe from a different point of view where positive change is possible.

Counselling is a unique professional process based on forming a trusting, respectful and non-judgemental professional relationship. You can talk in confidence about matters which are troubling you. Counsellors use a range of skills and interventions to help you identify, address and find ways of coping with challenges that occur in life.

Counselling may involve working with individuals, couples, family/whānau and groups, and can take place face-to-face, or via telephone or online platforms.

The benefits of choosing an NZAC Counsellor

Counsellors in New Zealand are not state regulated. However, choosing a counsellor who is an NZAC member provides you with the assurance that the person you are working with meets the ethical and professional standards you expect when seeking help. NZAC Counsellors work according to the ethical values and principles of our Code of Ethics which protects clients’ privacy and safety as well as providing a robust complaints process.

Since 2019 Counsellors registered with NZAC are required to have either; a Bachelor or Master's degree in Counselling or the overseas equivalent.

To obtain full membership with the Association, Counsellors go through an intensive process that takes most practitioners two years or more after completing tertiary qualifications.  

Professional counsellors have specialised knowledge, skills and understandings that enable them to offer clients an individualised experience. They are committed to enabling clients to find practitioners who best suit their unique personality, culture, identity, circumstances and needs.

All NZAC members are required to be accountable to a more experienced, senior practitioner for supervision on a regular and on-going basis to ensure the quality and effectiveness of their counselling practice. In addition all members are required to complete and be accountable for ongoing professional development to update their professional knowledge and skills as they seek to ensure all aspects of their mahi are effective. Both supervision and professional development are required to obtain an Annual Practicing Certificate.

Practical steps you might take to find a Counsellor

• Many people find a Counsellor via a personal recommendation from their GP or other health professionals, from their workplace with an EAP service, through a community agency, or a friend.
• Go to the NZAC directory of Counsellors and search for practitioners by: location, gender, culture, expertise, specialities and qualifications.
• Contact the Counsellor to check out their availability, and to get a sense of them and how they seem to you. Do they sound like a potential “right fit” for you and your needs? Counsellors are happy to talk with inquirers and answer questions.
• Treat the initial appointment as an opportunity to make sure the Counsellor is someone you think you can work with and talk openly about your issues. If it is helpful for you, take a list of questions you feel need answering before you engage with the Counsellor. There is no need to feel embarrassed about asking a Counsellor any question when the information you are seeking is important to you.
• It is not offensive to tell a Counsellor that they are not quite the “right fit” for you.