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This paper explores the components of Chinese college counsellors' mental models in their daily work based on a rich content analysis of the story accounts of 152 exemplary college counsellors over the past 8 years. On the basis of a rigid three‐step coding procedure, this study reveals that Chinese college counsellors' mental models generally comprise four common constituents, namely a love‐filled faith system, a rule‐based thinking system, a professionalism‐based knowledge system and action‐based performance. These components jointly illustrate the general landscape of Chinese college counsellors' internal well‐being and fill a research gap regarding the sparse attention given to counsellors in the global literature on faculty professionalism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Positive body image is a contemporary construct, having only received research attention within the past two decades in an effort to elicit a more holistic, comprehensive account of the concept of body image. Nevertheless, emerging literature has suggested its direct and indirect association with improved outcomes, including indicators of well‐being (e.g. self‐compassion) and feelings towards the self (e.g. self‐esteem). Positive body image has therefore been suggested as both a potential technique and a target of actionable therapeutic work for cultivating both physical and psychological well‐being. First, through insights from quantitative and qualitative seminal works, this paper demonstrates that positive body image is: (i) a multidimensional construct, distinct from negative body image; (ii) a confluence of theoretical disciplines and influences; (iii) protective, with therapeutic capacities; (iv) a positive outcome; (v) young, yet flourishing; and (vi) socially and politically relevant. Thus, complementing what positive body image is, this paper further situates therapeutic practice within the field of positive body image by delineating and contextualising their reciprocal capacities and relevant techniques. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Counselling and psychotherapy are not common professions that are considered alongside the work of sporting institutions, such as football academies. This paper therefore provides a brief reflection upon the existing research considering the way that such institutions currently engage with the mental health and well‐being of those that they support. In doing so, the world of elite sport engagement is considered before focusing more specifically upon research that has explored how football academies make use of psychological theory and therapy. This paper concludes that counselling and psychotherapy have an important role to play in supporting those at all stages of their football careers. However, delineation with clear roles and boundaries from other professions, such as sport psychology, proves vitally important, and further systematic exploration of this growing area of work is needed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Anxieties about sex and sexual problems are widespread and are often brought to counselling and psychotherapy. Research has found that even practitioners without specialist training often work with sexual difficulties because of the prevalence of such problems. Some of the most common concerns brought to therapy centre on desire discrepancies between male and female partners and a lack of sexual desire. In this paper, we ask the question what understandings of "heterosex" might await women and men bringing concerns about desire discrepancies and a lack of desire to the therapy room? We report the findings of a qualitative study exploring the discourses underpinning therapists' and psychology undergraduates' constructions of women and men repeatedly refusing sex in the context of an ongoing heterosexual relationship. Data were collected from 71 participants (33 therapists and 38 students) using the innovative story completion method, in which participants are presented with the opening sentences of a story centred on a hypothetical scenario and asked to complete it. The resulting stories were analysed with thematic analysis. Participants drew on heteronormative discourses of masculinity, femininity and heterosex to make sense of sexual refusal and its consequences. However, the stories written by male and, especially, female therapists included less problematisation of the absence of sex and more possibilities for overcoming sexual and relational problems. The data potentially raise questions about whether professional training allows therapists to access discourses that subvert dominant understandings of heterosex, as we argue it ideally should. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]