Counselling Book

The development of counselling in Britain during the past ten years has been remarkable by any standards. The increasing demand for counselling help has inevitably led to a proliferation of training courses and opportunities for those who wish to equip themselves for the role of the professional counsellor and there has been a corresponding concern that the training offered should be of the highest possible quality. In many ways this concern for quality and for rigorous standards is admirable and a healthy sign for an emerging profession whose members carry a heavy responsibility for the well-being of their fellow citizens. There is, however, a danger of power struggles and take-over bids with the aim that counselling should become the special preserve of those who wish to exclude those practitioners who do not hail from their particular schools or disciplines. This book seeks to demonstrate how great a tragedy it would be if such a process were to occur in Britain. By inviting contributions from counsellors from a wide variety of backgrounds and academic disciplines the editors seek to show that 'interdisciplinary perspectives' enrich and illuminate the practice of counselling and are indeed essential to those who are audacious enough to confront the complex mystery of human personality.