Join the Lab

The lab welcomes undergraduate/graduate volunteers, undergraduate students seeking independent/directed study course credit, master’s students, doctoral students, mental health professionals, post-doctoral researchers, and academics to join the lab. Please send a cover letter outlining your interest in joining the lab, a copy of your resume/cv, and a copy of your transcript of courses/grades (if a student) to Dr. Rob Bedi at Robinder.Bedi@ubc.ca

Research Lab Priority Topics

The lab is particularly interested in recruiting individuals who have one of the following research, teaching, or practice/service interests (Please note that the  exact recruitment focus may vary year by year due to existing support for each topic area within the lab at that time).

○ Investigating counselling and psychotherapy as Western cultural healing practices rather than as universally valid and applicable treatment approaches (see Frank and Frank’s [1993] model of psychotherapy as cultural healing and Bedi [2018] in Archives of Scientific Psychology).

○ The intersection of indigenous/traditional healing practices and counselling/psychotherapy. This can include examining similarities between indigenous/traditional healing practices and counselling/psychotherapy or between indigenous/traditional healers and counsellors/therapists. It can also include looking at the integration of traditional/indigenous healing practices with counselling/psychotherapy.  An interest or background in medical anthropology is welcome. A focus on South Asian Indian healing practices is especially welcome but not required.

○ Professional issues or disciplinary issues in Canadian counselling psychology.

○ Neglected topics in the Psychology of Men and Masculinity, such as the benefits of traditional masculinity, intimate partner abuse or violence against men, and investigating access barriers for men seeking counselling/psychotherapy.

○ Counselling/psychotherapy with Punjabis, Sikhs, or other individuals of Indian heritage.

○ Heterodox issues in counselling psychology that challenge dominant narratives and sacred ideas in counselling psychology, such as political/ideological bias, trigger warnings, and investigating the experiences of highly religious or conservative counselling psychology students or faculty. Research using Aversive Racism/Prejudice theory to examine counsellors, psychologists, professors, and students, particularly those who are highly liberal or who most believe themselves to be non-discriminatory.

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For Volunteer Research Assistant Applicants

Volunteers are expected to commit a minimum of 8 hours per week for a minimum of an 8 months (two semester) commitment (preferably 12 months/3 semesters). Please send a cover letter outlining your interest in joining the lab, a copy of your resume/cv, and a copy of your transcript of courses/grades to Dr. Rob Bedi at Robinder.Bedi@ubc.ca. Most initial volunteer positions involve working on a project directly overseen by one of the graduate students in the lab (and only indirectly by Dr. Bedi). Upon completion of of an initial volunteer contract (8 months to 1 year), the top volunteers may be invited to join a directly overseen by Dr. Bedi. Paid research assistant positions are only available to graduate students in the lab and undergraduate students who have completed a direct volunteering position with Dr. Bedi (8 months to 1 year).

For Undergraduate or Graduate Independent Study Applicants

In order to be admitted to the lab as an independent/directed studies student, a student must first be a research volunteer in the lab. Each year, usually the top one or two volunteers get invited to complete an independent study project.

For Prospective MA and PhD Applicants

Most MA students accepted the lab do their thesis research on a project (a) related to projects already going on in the lab, (b) that builds directly on an already published research study (by addressing a specific limitation of  that particular study or next specified step in that program of research), or (c) that has been partially conceptualized and pre-approved already by Dr Bedi.

Completely novel research projects that do not meet one of the three conditions listed are typically not accepted for MA students.  This is due to the high level of background knowledge, methodological sophistication, and supervisor expertise required to meet the quality standards in the lab. Exceptions to this are made on a case-by-case basis for incoming MA students who are already highly accomplished researchers for their level, those continuing a previously initiated research program, or those with external contacts who will collaborate on the study and/or provide funding or extra resources to support the proposed project. Greater flexibility and options are provided to PhD students.

A strong research match is necessary for joining the lab. Those seeking admissions to the MA or PhD program are invited to inquire about a potential research match, if their proposed research does not clearly fall into one of the above listed priority areas. Past research or professional experience in one of the areas related to one’s proposed thesis or dissertation project (or a very closely related area) is required for those who wish to join this lab as MA or PhD students.  Without this, an applicant is much less likely to be offered admissions because the amount of background knowledge necessary to design and implement a study to lab standards (and publishable in a very high quality journal) often exceeds what a novice student in that particular topical area can usually achieve within the standard program of study curricular length (4 years for the PhD, 3 years for the MA).

Please note: All master’s and PhD students in the lab who are enrolled in the UBC counselling psychology program are expected to devote a minimum of 2 hours per week to the lab on top of their own thesis/dissertation research. Typically, this involves attending a weekly lab meeting and providing assistance to others in the lab on their projects or working on a collaborative lab project. Those interested in earning authorship on conference presentations or publications may choose to compete additional hours, but this is not required.

Pre-approved Projects for Thesis/Dissertation Research

This is not an exhaustive list. Any research project that falls under the priority areas listed above will be given consideration. Below is a small sampling of specific research projects that are consistent with the lab’s focus.

○ Administering Heterodox Academy’s Campus Expression Survey to counselling psychology students in Canada or the US

○ Investigating Liberal or ideological privilege in counselling psychology by replicating Inbar & Yammars’ (2012) and Honeycut & Freberg (2017) studies with counselling psychologists.

○ Replicating Johnson and Peackock’s (2020) Breaking the Bubble article about ideological diversity with counselling or counselling psychology students.

○ Investigating the effectiveness of trigger warnings with counselling psychology students (For example, replicating onee of the studies by Benjamin Bellet).

○ Replicating “Detecting Microaggressions Toward a Muslim Client in Psychotherapy” (Winkeljohn Black et al., 2023), but do for a Sikh client.

○ Comparing the efficacy of different counselling theoretical approaches in India using meta-analysis, specifically comparing a theory that emerged in India (or is highly compatible with Indian culture) versus one that emerged in the West and is less culturally congruent with traditional Indian culture, to test the hypothesis that the one developed in India using Indian cultural understandings will be more effective. I would be open to doing this with another country and theoretical approach (e.g., Japan and Morita Therapy). This is a conceptual replication of the following article: Xu, H., & Tracey, T. J. G. (2016). Cultural congruence with psychotherapy efficacy: A network meta-analytic examination in China. Journal of Counseling Psychology, 63(3), 359–365. https://doi.org/10.1037/cou0000145

○ Creation of a scale measuring Canadian counselling psychologist’s professional identity

○ Examining the professional identity of counselling psychologists in medical settings.

○ Perceptions on the similarities/differences between counselling and clinical psychology, amongst the public, counselling psychologists, and clinical psychologists.

○ Experimental examination of the access to counselling appointments between Punjabi Sikhs with and without an accent (an Audit Study)

○ Experimental examination of the access to counselling appointments for highly religious versus non-religious clients (an Audit Study)

○ Comparative access to counselling appointments for Sikh and Muslim clients in high Sikh and high Muslim communities [PhD student only]

○ Replicating this study on access to counselling appointments for Punjabi Sikhs but by email (original study used phone requests): https://open.library.ubc.ca/soa/cIRcle/collections/ubctheses/24/items/1.0435639

○Examining how to culturally-adapt counselling for Punjabi Sikh clients in Canada/U.S. as a function of their acculturation level (e.g., by using the Delphi method).

○ Comparative examination of access to counselling appointments for African Canadians/Americans by socioeconomic status.

○ Comparative examination of access to counselling appointments for Canadian Indigenous clients as a function of traditional/non-traditional name or as a function of socioeconomic status.

○ Using cultural variables (e.g., Acculturation, Western values/Westernization, Cultural Mistrust, Individualism/Collectivism, Colonial Mentality, Causal Beliefs/Explanatory Frameworks of Disease/Disorder Self-construal) to predict how credible counselling/psychotherapy is seen as or to predict counselling/psychotherapy outcome or dropout.

○ Does the principle of moral self-licensing apply to giving land acknowledgements

 

Selecting one of the above projects is not required to gain admissions to the lab. They only serve as set of examples. Please do not select one of the above sample projects merely to gain admissions to the lab. A thesis/dissertation is a gruelling process and intrinsic interest and motivation in the topic is important to maximize success. Applicants proposing any of the example projects listed above will be carefully scrutinized for demonstrated past interest or related professional/research experience to the proposed project.

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Gaining Admissions to the Lab as a MA or PhD

Admission to UBC’s Counselling Psychology MA and PhD programs is extremely competitive. Every year, many excellent candidates get turned away, many of who get admitted to other programs or would have no problem getting admitted to other programs. Information on rejection rates for MA applicants to the program is available here under the tab “Enrolment, Duration & Other Stats”: https://www.grad.ubc.ca/prospective-students/graduate-degree-programs/master-of-arts-counselling-psychology. Information on rejection rates for PhD applicants to the program is available here under the tab “Enrolment, Duration & Other Stats”: https://www.grad.ubc.ca/prospective-students/graduate-degree-programs/phd-counselling-psychology.

Before applying, please carefully review the admissions requirements and application process for the graduate programs in counselling psychology: https://ecps.educ.ubc.ca/counselling-psychology/application-info . The UBC CNPS admissions committee then provides a shortlist of applicants recommended for admissions pending a suitable supervisor research match (and funding for PhD students). The lab has the ability to select applicants from that shortlist for admission to the program under Dr. Bedi’s mentorship and supervision.

To give you a better sense of the competitiveness of the Bedi RTS Lab and some of the qualifications of those who get accepted, please see below. This information can help you better assess your chances of acceptance into the lab assuming a strong research match:

Admitted MA students to the Bedi RTS Lab

Indicator at Time of Application	Average	Median	Mode	Maximum
# of Journal Article (peer-reviewed) Authorships	1.00	1.00	multimodal	3
# of Journal Article (peer-reviewed) First Authorships	0.60	0.5	multimodal	2
# of submitted Journal Articles/Book Chapter Authorships	1	1	multimodal	2
# of Authorships on Chapters, Proceedings and other Peer-Reviewed Works	0	0	0	0
# of First Authorships on Chapters, Proceedings and other Peer-Reviewed Works	0	0	0	0
# of Authorships on Conference Presentations	3.6	4.0	multimodal	7
# of First Authorships on Conference Presentations	3.0	4.0	multimodal	5
Calendar Years of Paid/Volunteer Research Assistant Experience	2.8	2.0	multimodal	6.5
Calendar Years of Paid/Volunteer Social Service/Helping/Teaching Experience	4.7	4	3	8.5
GRE-Quantitative Percentile	65	63.5	multimodel	81
GRE-Verbal Percentile	53.75	45.0	multimodal	98
GRE-Analytical Percentile	80.5	85	multimodal	98

 

Admitted PhD students to the Bedi RTS Lab

Indicator at time of Application	Average	Median	Mode	Maximum
# of Journal Article (peer-reviewed) Authorships	0.80	1.00	1	2
# of Journal Article (peer-reviewed) First Authorships	0.40	0.00	0	1
# of submitted Journal Articles/Book Chapter Authorships	0.40	0.00	0	2
# of Authorships on Chapters, Proceedings and other Peer-Reviewed Works	0.20	0.00	0	1
# of First Authorships on Chapters, Proceedings and other Peer-Reviewed Works	0.20	0.00	0	1
# of Authorships on Conference Presentations	11.00	12.00	multimodal	18
# of First Authorships on Conference Presentations	4.80	5.0	7	7
Calendar Years of Paid/Volunteer Research Assistant Experience	5.55	6.75	multimodal	9
GRE-Quantitative Percentile	57.0	59.0	34 (lowest)	76
GRE-Verbal Percentile	66.25	70.0	37 (lowest)	88
GRE-Analytical Percentile	70.75	70.5	49 (lowest)	93.0

 

% who published their thesis by time of application: 0%

% who submitted their thesis for publication by time of application: 20%

% who obtained SSHRC/CIHR/large-scale national funding during master’s degree: 40%

% who were registered/certified as a counsellor by time of application: 40%

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If you are still interested in joining the lab as an MA or PhD student and believe you are competitive based upon the above information, you are welcome to contact me by email prior to submitting an application to confirm I would be interested in your proposed thesis/dissertation project. When you email me, please let me know how you see your proposed project fitting into the lab.  Include a copy of your CV/resume and transcript (unofficial copy is fine).

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                                                      Research not Rhetoric, Proof not Politics, Evidence not Emotion, Doubt not Dogma.

  Without critical thinking, this is not education but indoctrination. I do not want to teach you what to think but how to think…for yourself.

Confusion is a precursor to Discovery