A Descriptive Examination of Canadian Counselling Psychology Doctoral Programs

Recent advances for counselling psychology in Canada have led to increased efforts to identify what characterizes the specialty in the Canadian context. Because counselling psychology only recently received a nationally endorsed definition by the Canadian Psychological Association, individual doctoral programs have developed relatively independently of each other outside of minimum accreditation requirements, based on their divergent understandings of the field. This study provided a quantitative comparison of counselling psychology doctoral programs in Canada to identify areas of overlap and differentiation. Results indicated a large number of similarities, but also key differences, among the doctoral programs. These results are discussed in terms of the general training in counselling psychology in Canada, a provisional comparison of the specialty in Canada with the specialty in the United States, and proposed reasons for why a student (or faculty member) would find better fit for one program over another.