The public and the help-giving professions in Australia.

Abstract

AILEEN FLVNN is a social worker in a general medical hospital. KATHRYN CAVE, GREGORY HODGSON, MARK PROUATT, AND WILLIAM SULTMANN are undergraduate psychology students. JAMES M. GARDNER if a Fellow of the American Association on Mental Deficiency and of the Australian Psychological Society. He is a former editorial board member of Professional Psychology and has been a consulting editor of several other journals. He is currently a professor in and Head of the Division of Applied Psychology, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa.

Community and client perceptions of psychologists and other health professionals

“…In Australia, interest in the area has generally focussed on comparing psychologists with other established professionals (Small & Gault, 1975) or health professionals in particular (Donovan, 1985; Sharpley. 1986; Wilkinson et al, 1978). Recent reviews of community attitudes towards psychologists in Australia (Sharpley, 1986) and in the USA (Webb & Speer, 1986; Wood, Jones, & Benjamin, 1986) concluded that divergent methodologies and foci made it difficult to arrive at an accurate conclusion as to the public's knowledge and attitudes.…”

Profiling a Profession: A Victorian Survey Assessing Lay Attitudes Toward and Knowledge of Counselling Psychologists

“…This discrepancy may suggest that participants are confusing counselling psychologists with counsellors and clinical psychologists with psychiatrists and that, when given the opportunity to provide a more elaborative response, may be drawing on well‐established stereotypes that underlie the commonly encountered terms of “counselling” and “psychiatry” (Dempsey, 2007). Indeed, the roles and professional functions of psychologists and psychiatrists have been confused for many years (Small & Gault, 1975; Tallent & Reiss, 1959; Webb & Speer, 1986; Wilkinson et al., 1978).…”

“…Where earlier research has shown a relative lack of understanding (Guest, 1948; Small & Gault, 1975; Thumin & Zebelman, 1967; Wilkinson et al., 1978) more recent studies have demonstrated a shift towards greater knowledge of MHPs (Agnew, 2003; Sharpley et al., 2004; Wood et al., 1986). This may suggest that, in contrast to earlier suggestions (Hopson & Cunningham, 1995; Sharpley, 1986), psychologists are playing an increasingly relevant role in people's lives.…”

“…That is, they were neither the target population under study nor a subgroup under the broader category of “psychologist”. For example, Wilkinson et al. (1978) included clinical psychologists among the sample of help‐giving professionals but not counselling psychologists.…”

“…Second, Victoria is under‐represented in Australian public opinion research of psychologists. At present, psychology's public image has been derived from Queensland (Agnew, 2003; Dempsey, 2007; Sharpley et al., 2004; Wilkinson et al., 1978), New South Wales (Hopson & Cunningham, 1995), and South Australia (Hartwig & Delin, 2003). The lack of public opinion data derived from Victoria is disappointing, particularly when Victorian members of both the counselling and clinical colleges of the APS comprise the second largest membership base across all states and territories in Australia, and where three of the five university programmes in the specialty of counselling psychology exist.…”