Clarification concerning the training, theoretical orientation and practical capabilities of the counsellor is provided on the basis of training guidelines, conversations with counsellors and therapy reports. The counsellor's therapeutic function consists in mediating between parents and their neurotically disturbed child by offering herself to the child as an ideal object and auxiliary ego. The unrestrictive atmosphere of the therapy permits regressive drive gratification and the working through of unmastered conflicts by means of role-playing. The usefulness of non-verbal play therapy (A. Freud, Zulliger, Berna) is at times limited in difficult infantile neuroses, where there is a danger that the therapist's playing along with the child too promptly will not allow inner conflicts to be resolved. A further complication arises when the counsellor must include parental neuroses in the treatment.