Welcome to Our Pluralistic Community
8th International Conference on Pluralistic Counselling and Psychotherapy, 25-26 Nov. 2026
This online and in-person conference invites the pluralistic practice community to weave between worlds, exploring the diverse cultural understandings and practices from The Four Winds (Ngā Hau e Whā): the global North to the global South, as well as Western and Eastern traditions. To weave, we need many distinct threads, or forms of understanding. Each thread represents something important that can stand on its own and can be brought together to create something new. No one thread dominates, and weaving needs a balance of different threads, brought together to make meaning. This process is dynamic and emergent where a quality of wholeness and strength brings together multiple ways of knowing.
Pluralistic counselling and psychotherapy is based on two key principles:
- There’s no ‘best’ way of doing therapy: different clients need different things at different times.
- If therapists want to find out the best way of helping clients, they should talk to them about it.
This doesn’t mean that clients will always know what they want, or that what clients want is what they need; but that any views that clients have on how best to do therapy should be actively elicited, respected, and engaged with.
Pluralism in counselling and psychotherapy can be both an attitude towards therapy and a specific practice.
- Pluralistic attitude: a general respect for different approaches, and a willingness to help clients find the right therapy for them. That means that therapists who practice ‘pure form’ therapies—like person-centred counselling or CBT—can still consider themselves pluralistic.
- Pluralistic practice: a form of therapy in which the practitioner draws on a range of methods and understandings to try and tailor the therapy to the individual client—based on what they and the client think may be most helpful.
This Pluralistic Practice website is the central hub for information and resources about the pluralistic approach, developed by the leading people in the field. It is primarily orientated towards counsellors and psychotherapists who identify with, or are interested in, the pluralistic approach; but it is also accessible to clients and other interested laypeople.
You can access our Pluralistic Practice journal here
If you are interested in contributing to the website we welcome blog posts. You can also join our Facebook discussion group @pluralisticpractice , or see our posts on Twitter @PluralPractice , or Instagram @pluralisticnetwork .
You can also email us with your comments and ideas.