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This book comprises a collection of essays written by students on Counselling Diploma courses at Birkbeck College, London. These courses aim to provide a psychodynamic education relevant not just to potential counsellors but also to others whose work ‘has an integral element of responsibility and concern for the emotional health and development of people’.
A couple of chapters are straightforward case histories but most are based on the
dissertations which each student writes at the end of the two-year course. In these the task was to relate the theory learned in the classroom to issues arising in the context of their work, be it as counsellor, teacher, youth worker or whatever. Thus not all the chapters are directly concerned with counselling but all try to show how psychodynamic thinking can deepen one's understanding of the people with whom one works.
I appreciate the desire behind the publication of these essays. Considerable thought and experience go into such dissertations and the results often merit a wider audience than the course examiners. Reading the volume, however, it is clear that it both gains and suffers from having its origins in student assignments. The theoretical base drawn upon is sometimes rather restricted, conveying the impression that the authors have all read the same books and/or attended the same seminars.
On the other hand, perhaps even as a consequence of their relative lack of theoretical sophistication, the papers are written with a freshness, clarity and directness which makes them interesting and accessible to a non-specialist or student readership. There is none of the condescension or chummy joviality that sometimes mars popularising accounts of psychological themes.
Another merit of the book's scope and format is that it gives a sense of the breadth of settings in which counselling skills are put to use. The range of both settings and clientele makes salutary reading for psychotherapists who tend to look down on mere counselling. T