A decision to set up an organisation to encourage the exchange of ideas, research findings and personal experience in this field led to the formation of the International Round Table for the Advancement of Counselling (IRTAC) and found practical expression in the first International Seminar on Counselling held at the University of Neuch�tel, Switzerland in 1966. This seminar brought together people from many different countries who were involved in counselling and guidance, in training counsellors and guidance advisers or in various related academic fields.


Since Neuch�tel over thirty international conferences for counselling have been held in twenty countries covering many and diverse topics. The standard pattern is the International Counselling Research Seminar followed by an inaugural session involving leading figures of the host country and representatives of UNESCO and other international, inter-governmental, and non-governmental organisations. The inaugural session is followed by plenary sessions and discussions in working groups which are of interest to specialists in a wide range of activities including counselling, youth work, social work, psychology, education and training, medicine, nursing and occupational and other therapies. The conference usually ends with co-ordinators' reports on the working groups, a general discussion on counselling policy and a summing-up by the President. Alongside these conferences IRTAC has welcomed the founding of the International Journal for the Advancement of Counselling and of the International Research Seminar.
 

The success of these activities in helping to ensure a general acceptance of the value and importance of counselling is one reason why in April of 1997, the Executive Council of IRTAC decided it was no longer so important for the Association to refer to the Advancement of Counselling in its title. Consequently, IRTAC has now become the International Association for Counselling (IAC)
 

The Influence of IAC
Through the sponsorship of over thirty consultations, seminars and conferences and through publishing the results of these exchanges, IAC has played a significant role in the development of counselling services in many parts of the world. IAC has offered advice and information to governmental and non-governmental organisations both international and national, in industrial and developing countries alike, on the application of counselling in education, health and social services and other fields.

Organisation and Status
IAC is administered by an Executive Council of fifteen members drawn from many countries and is governed by its General Assembly of paid up members meeting biennially under the chairpersonship of its President.

IAC is registered in Belgium as an international association with charitable status. Its official languages are English and French. It has consultative status with the United Nations, ECOSOC, UNICEF, UNESCO, ILO, and the Council of Europe.