Counselling and Technology
In recent months, I’ve been actively searching for a PhD supervisor - someone who understands the delicate intersection between counselling and technology. It’s been a journey marked by unexpected realisations, and each step seems to uncover more layers of complexity. What I initially believed would be a straightforward search for expertise has instead brought me face-to-face with a gap I hadn’t fully anticipated.
The first potential supervisor I had in mind was at NTU. But, as with so many plans, it didn’t work out. He was on the brink of retirement and no longer had the capacity to mentor new candidates. I moved on, hopeful that the next step would be more fruitful. SUSS offered a list of supervisors, and while each name came with credentials that impressed me, none seemed to inhabit the specific space I was seeking. One individual had a deep, nuanced understanding of counselling but lacked the technological expertise that my research demands. Another had conducted thorough research on digital platforms, yet felt unqualified to guide me due to their limited experience in the counselling profession.
What became clear is that no one I encountered straddled both worlds in the way I had hoped. This realisation, while initially disheartening, has since evolved into something more—an affirmation. It underscores why my research is necessary, why this overlap between technology and counselling needs to be explored. I’ve begun to see this space as not only vacant but ripe with possibility.
In industry, this combination is already thriving. Platforms like Intellect are booming, offering mental health support and counselling services via meticulously designed technologies. These platforms understand their end users, merging mental health care with technological innovation in ways that are intuitive and effective. So, I find myself asking: why does this space lag behind? Where are the experts who are meant to examine these innovations critically, to expand the research and build a body of knowledge that straddles both counselling and tech?
Perhaps the absence of such experts signals that no one has yet ventured into this specific territory. It may be that the focus has been too narrow—trained on the efficacy of these platforms, on the measurable change technology brings to counselling. But what about the process itself? The internal reflections, the shifting paradigms that occur as counsellors engage with technology—where is the research on that?
There is something strange, almost disorienting, about realising that the very area I seek guidance in might be the space I’m meant to fill. It’s thrilling, in a way, to imagine becoming that expert, to forge a path that merges technology with the practice of counselling. But with this excitement comes fear. It’s the fear of venturing into a space that feels vast, uncharted, and dark - a space that doesn’t yet have a name or a defined shape in the world of papers and journals.
I keep circling back to the expansiveness of it all. The sheer breadth of my research area feels almost insurmountable at times. How can a PhD, in its finite scope, possibly address a field so wide, so unexplored? I’m often struck by the ruthlessness of my own ambition, the naive hope that I might carve out answers in this uncharted territory. I know I won’t be able to cover it all, but I can begin. Maybe I can take the first steps into that void.
The search for a supervisor has reinforced something fundamental; that the gap between counselling and technology is not just about the platforms that already exist. It’s about the expertise, or more accurately, the lack of it. This isn’t a gap that can be easily filled by developing new technologies or refining existing ones. What’s missing is the deeper understanding, the critical reflection, the theoretical underpinnings that come from those who inhabit both worlds.
And maybe, just maybe, that’s where I come in.