Synopses & Reviews
In The Making of a Counsellor case studies illustrate work done with impossible' clients; other essays about orphans and debtors, accountancy trainees and expatriate employees explore new ways of thinking about these groups of people. More traditional, perhaps, are essays about work with neurological patients, adolescent youth club members, traumatised families, and the chronically mentally ill. Each essay breaks fresh ground in understanding the complexity of the problems and the richness of the counselling relationship.
In vivid narrative, The Making of a Counsellor. conveys the experience of thinking and working as a counsellor. The original and thoughtful essays make this an invaluable source of ideas and techniques.
Synopsis
In The Making of a Counsellor, the twelve contributors show how their classroom learning of theory and technique applied to their subsequent counselling work and how this encounter between theory and practice, knowledge and experience transformed them from students into professionals. All the essays portray something of both their struggle to become professional counsellors and their delight in the efficacy of their new learning.
First, the contributors demonstrate the versatility of psychoanalytically based counselling, as they describe how ideas and techniques are used in settings which on the surface seem to offer little scope for a counsellor. Second, each essay deals with the position of a counsellor breaking fresh ground in understanding the complexity of the problems and the richness of the counselling relationship.
Because of its vivid description of what it is like to work as a counsellor, The Making of a Counsellor is an excellent introductory text for health professionals. At the same time, the wide range of situations covered in the essays offers new perspectives on the applicability of counselling which will be of interest to more experienced counsellors, psychotherapists and allied professionals.