Underpinning CPCAB Model

The CPCAB model underpins all CPCAB’s qualifications. It consists of three parts, which together form a working model of the counsellor/supervisor. Part 1 and Part 2 also provide a working model of the helper.

Part 1: Seven Processes

The first part of the CPCAB model is the idea that, whenever a counsellor, helper or supervisor is working with a client, helpee or supervisee, there are seven processes at work. The seven processes are described in the seven units that are found in all CPCAB qualifications. It might help your trainees to understand these seven processes if they imagine them to be like seven parts of a person’s body:

These seven interactive and creative processes are essential to a practitioner’s development, as well as being evidence of proficiency itself – process and outcomes are intertwined. Good use of these interactive processes, when working with clients, helpees or supervisees, is at the heart of counselling, helping and supervision. The end ‘product’ of learning – personal understanding, knowledge, skills and associated proficiency – is thus a complex process, not a ‘thing’.

The seven processes are expressed in such a way as to allow each Centre to work out individual training and assessment programmes to fit with their own approach. For each CPCAB qualification, an examination of the unit elements and criteria (given in the Candidate Learning Record in the relevant User Guide) will show how these map to the seven processes.

Part 2: Different levels of work

CPCAB has developed a series of qualifications that set out what trainees need to learn in order to provide progressively more in-depth levels of helping work, therapeutic counselling and supervision (etc). These levels are based on the second part of CPCAB’s working model of the helper/counsellor/supervisor.

The idea is that there are a series of ‘Service Levels’, which start with helping work and progress, step-by-step, to working with people who have complex mental health problems. This aspect of the CPCAB model defines both a particular level of work and the associated understandings and skills that a practitioner needs to work effectively at that level. The Service Levels also provide a simple but effective framework for assessing the needs of a client/helpee/supervisee, together with defining the nature, and limits of, the service that a practitioner/agency is able to offer.

These Service Levels have been defined by CPCAB, but take account of common categorisations in mental health services.

Detailed information about the various Service Levels is given in CPCAB's Tutor Reference Manual.

Part 3: Three therapeutic methods

The third part of the CPCAB model relates to counselling and psychotherapy, but not to helping work. It describes three generic ways - which are often intertwined - in which counsellors can work therapeutically with their clients.

Working with the structure of the self:

This therapeutic method is based on the idea that there are different parts to our self, which are often in conflict with each other. Through helping the client to uncover the structure of her self, and then resolve any internal conflicts, the counsellor can help her change the way she feels as a person. The Freudian model of the id, ego and super-ego is one very famous theory of the structure of the self. In other counselling approaches, however, the counsellor helps the client find her own personal theory - helping her discover, for example, parts of herself that she calls the 'prisoner' and the 'prison guard'.

Working with the history of the self:

This therapeutic method is based on the idea that 'our past shapes our present' - that what we learnt about the world, earlier in our life, shapes the way we live our life now. Through helping the client explore her past, the counsellor can help her change the way she lives her life today. Characters in films have 'back-stories' which describe earlier events in their life and are used to explain why the character is the way they are. These back-stories are often based on the idea that 'our past shapes our present': for example, in the film K-PAX a man is classified as mentally ill and his psychiatrist works very hard to discover the traumatic event that he believes made his patient ill.

Working with the self-in-relation:

This therapeutic method is based on the idea that we develop patterns of relating - especially emotional patterns - that can be unhelpful to us. Through helping the client explore these patterns, the counsellor can help her change the way she relates with other people. The field of counselling and psychotherapy has made a number of important discoveries about the nature of human relationships. One such discovery is the practice of making the relationship between the client and counsellor the content of the counselling work: for example, the way in which the client establishes, sustains and ends the counselling relationship can itself be made the subject of the counselling.