10 Tips for Integrating Neuroscience Ethically and Effectively into your Practice

In this course, Dr. Chad Luke, Professor of Counsellor Education at Tennessee Tech University in Tennessee, describes 10 principles for integration of neuroscience into counselling and offers 10 tips, each with an action step, for doing so. The tips are highly practical, from recognising limitations in that, as counsellors we are not neuroscientists, to acknowledging that even for those who are, neuroscience is not a panacea. Dr. Luke’s reassuring theme reverberates through the talk: there is no substitute, including from neuroscience, for a robust counsellor-client therapeutic relationship. That said, he encourages counsellors to open their minds to the vast, complex literature of neuroscience, but to hold it lightly and apply it cautiously. Neuroscience is best used, Luke asserts, to demystify and humanise the client experience; thus, a focus on wholeness and the person of the client (not their brain) best utilises the contributions of neuroscience.