This paper describes, with case-history illustrations, a method of psychotherapeutic counselling practised at Tübingen University, and located between the regular initial-interview diagnosis and consultation-hour therapy of about three hours' duration. Clients are 'self-developers', i.e. students approaching the end of their 'social moratorium'. Success in counselling depends on grasping and handling the biographically determined (unconscious) conflicts influencing the counselling situation—before a particular type of therapy is recommended—and on concentrating upon the actual conflict (the 'motive for seeking advice').