Implications for Strengthening Mixed Partnering and Parenting: Counselling and Psychotherapy

Abstract

This final chapter is the result of many epistemological as well as ethical reflections and brings insights from my clinical practice into this research. Besides working as an academic since 2000, in the Department of Psychology and Educational Studies at Roskilde University along with affiliation to Interdisciplinary Studies in Health Promotion and Health Strategies, for the past three decades I have been working as a clinical psychologist, providing counselling and psychotherapy. My clients have included, among others, ethnically mixed couples and families, ethnic minority youths, their families and transnational adoptees. It has been a challenge to combine the research-based results from the present study focussing on ‘ordinary’, intermarried couples with positive mental health and wellbeing, with insights from my psychosocial practice. A survey about the psychotherapeutic activities of psychologists in Denmark (Jacobsen, Nielsen & Mathiesen, 2013) in a Danish psychological journal Psykolog Nyt, made me aware that just 2% of psychologists in Denmark have a Ph.D. degree along with a specialisation in psychotherapy Thus only a few psychologists possess “double competence” which combines clinical practice experiences with research experience. Besides it was pointed that about 7% have a minority background like me while 93% have majority Danish background. At the same time significance of qualitative research in enhancing counselling and psychotherapy has been highlighted emphatically by McLeod, 2012.