Counselling only a listening Therapy ?

22/02/2009 by admin.

I was reading a mental health training manual recently and whilst skimming through a section on talking therapies I found myself becoming slightly irritated at the classification of counselling, which was categorised under Listening Therapies. I might have been able to swallow my indignation had it not have been placed alongside the Clergy, Samaritans and Prison Listeners. Now don’t rush in armed with you own indignation, as I feel all of the aforementioned have their place, but counselling should be given the same weight and respect as psychology and psychotherapy. It would also be easy for the reader to assume that I am being very defensive of my own profession and maybe there is an element of that. Nonetheless, I feel confident that the individual who compiled the original text would have placed their own modality within the bracket of psychotherapy.

Maybe I should have planned what I was going to write because I now see myself facing the whole issue of professional jealousy and snobbery ! Working very closely with the local NHS Trust and being a Governor of same, I usually try and avoid this somewhat contentious issue. Perhaps that says more about me, although I would generally not see myself as someone who avoids confrontation which I feel confident many of my peers would bear out. However, I am not that foolhardy “to bite the hand that feeds”.

When asked what do I do apart from running a mental health charity, many mental health practitioners appear to display a very low regard for counselling and then seem to want to confirm this by asking which modalities I studied ? I have learnt not to be defensive about this and do not have any problem in explaining my approach as eclectic, which I know some see as “can’t make your mind up”. However, there is a great richness of not being bound to one particular school of thought and having a whole array of theories available to me. Through my own continued study I have learnt many approaches, all of which have their place. The thought of having to practice in a purest sense would drive me to distraction and feels so restrictive. The joy of learning something new and then being able to incorporate that in to my own practice and watching the client develop, is a wonderful experience. I also feel that I would be cheating my clients by driving them down one particular path when there are so many to chose from, all of which might be more suited to their own particular issues.

Going back to jealousy, snobbery and adding in over protectiveness just for good measure. Surely the best, approach is letting the client decide what is best for them. I accept that there are some limitations to this statement, as many clients will be assigned a practitioner through Primary or Secondary Care. Invariably they will not know or perhaps care which theory is which and will not be given any choice, except take or leave it. Private practice is of course not open to everyone due to the obvious cost implications. In my very own utopian world I want clients to make informed choices and practitioners to stop being precious about their modalities and accept that whatever works for the client is the right choice. I hold no belief in religion but that would not make me talk a client out of this choice, if it helped them. As far as I am concerned all that is important is that everyone works professionally and within their own abilities and empowers the client on the road to making many, many choices.

Clive Stone

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