Editing Talk:Co-counselling (section)

== Article assessment ==

I noticed that this article was assessed on the [[Wikipedia:WikiProject Psychology|WikiProject Psychology]] template. I don't think that I agree with how the article was assessed, so I wanted to discuss the reasons for its assessment. This article has not gone through a GA review or any other peer review. It is well-written but it has very few in-line references. I don't think that it meets the criteria of a [[Wikipedia:Good articles|Good Article]], let alone an A-class article. I think that it deserves a B-class quality assessment at most. As for importance, this doesn't seem like an especially well-known or recognized type of therapy in the field of psychology, especially in comparison to other psychology articles, so I would probabably rate it no higher than Mid-importance. Any comments? —[[User:Cswrye|Cswrye]] 21:13, 14 November 2006 (UTC)
:I'm inclined to support your assessment. This article may be overrated in relation to the other psychology assessments. [[User:Rfrisbie|Rfrisbie]]<sup>[[User_talk:Rfrisbie|talk]]</sup> 17:17, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

My opinion is that it is mistakenly being assessed as part of Psychology, whereas co-counselling in general (and particularly [[Re-evaluation Counseling]]) are more part of radical psychotherapy and many practitioners are anti-psychiatry in particular and anti-mainstream psychology in general. Therefore in the Wikipedia context, this is a bit like car ferry operators judging the quality of road tunnels, at least, it would look that way to RC'ers and (some) general co-counsellors. Therefore the issue is really if it should be categorised in that way. If it is, then it perhaps could be "assessed" by people more from a psychotherapy or humanistic psychology background rather than "mainstream" "scientific" psychology, as people in the latter camps I feel are fairly certain to take a jaundiced view of it. I have had separate discussions with [[User:Cswrye|Cswrye]] about this, anticipating there would be some controversy. [[User:MarkThomas|MarkThomas]] 17:40, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

:Article quality ratings are based in wikistandards, which are neutral on pro-anti-anything perspectives. If this is A-quality, then ask for a [[Wikipedia:Peer review|peer review]] to get it ready for a featured article nomination. Importance should be based on clearly defined perspectives. Obviously, importance will vary based on those perspectives.  If you all come to some resolution on that, it's fine with me. [[User:Rfrisbie|Rfrisbie]]<sup>[[User_talk:Rfrisbie|talk]]</sup> 17:57, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

The importance assessment is frequently misunderstood. Some WikiProjects use the term "priority" rather than "importance", but for practical purposes, they mean the same thing. Importance in this context refers to whether or not the average person would expect to find this topic in an encyclopedia of psychology, or in other terms, how important is this topic to gaining an understanding of psychology. A lower importance assessment doesn't mean that an article isn't important, only that it is less fundamental to the field of psychology as other articles. You can see a definition of the term at [[Wikipedia:Version 1.0 Editorial Team/Release Version Criteria#Importance of topic]] and the current version of the WikiProject Psychology assessment scale at [[Wikipedia:WikiProject Psychology/Assessment]]. —[[User:Cswrye|Cswrye]] 18:38, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

With regard to importance, a key question is whether psychotherapy, and hence personal development generally, comes under the scope of psychology which is, strictly, only the study of human personality not the practice of trying to change it.  Since Wikipedia follows the common practice of blurring this distinction the argument that co-counselling is part of radical psychotherapy becomes an argument for its inclusion.  In the context of psychotherapy being included under psychology I would argue that co-counselling is highly important.  It is a mainstream approach within humanistic psychology (see therapeutic context above) while being importantly different from any other approach.  It is widely practised (I would guess, for instance, that there are a good deal more people who have practised co-counselling that have practised or been clients of gestalt therapy).  I think users of Wikipedia would expect to find an article on co-counselling included.  As to quality, I have added some in-line links and I would welcome specific suggestions for other improvements.[[User:John Talbut|John Talbut]] 08:22, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

:The best way to work on the quality is to have a [[Wikipedia:Peer review|peer review]]. The people there know a lot more about improving articles than I do. I'll be willing to set one up for you if you want me to. —[[User:Cswrye|Cswrye]] 14:41, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

::OK, thanks.  I have set up a peer review, I hope I have done it correctly.[[User:John Talbut|John Talbut]] 20:27, 19 November 2006 (UTC)

Sorry to bring this up again, but now that the peer review has been archived, I wanted to discuss the next step of the assessment. It's pretty clear from the review that this article is not at [[Wikipedia:Good articles|good article]] status, although I think that it might be pretty close. I'm going to recommend that the quality be stepped down to '''B''', at least until it passes a good article review. For the importance, I again want to point out that this is a relative assessment, not just relative to other forms of therapy, but also to all psychology topics. The high-importance rating is generally reserved for broad, general areas of psychology, such as the branches of psychology and major psychological theories. There are virtually no therapies listed as high-importance, and the few that are are really "umbrella" topics that describe types of therapies. Because of this, I'm going to recommend that the importance be changed to '''Mid'''. —[[User:Cswrye|Cswrye]] 16:53, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

I went ahead and changed the assessment, but feel free to continue with the discussion. If there is additional support for a different assessment, it should be changed to reflect that. —[[User:Cswrye|Cswrye]] 21:37, 12 December 2006 (UTC)