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Written with the intent to fill a gap in the literature on counselling by providing a comprehensive introductory text to psychoanalytically based counselling of young people (adolescents and young adults), Ms Noonan's book no doubt admirably achieves its aim. “Theory, practice and professional matters” (p. vii) are considered by the author to be of critical importance for counsellors, and are discussed comprehensively but not superficially, and with a clarity that is impressive.
Many of the principles, processes and practices described will be of interest and use to psychotherapists: to those of us who are trained as well as to those who are in training. Indeed, I most often had the feeling that the book could serve equally as an introduction to psychotherapy, an impression Ms Noonan anticipates in her “Preface”. For me, important questions were thus raised about the differences and similarities between counselling and psychotherapy. Here again, the author anticipates the reader's reaction, but to my mind she eloquently sidesteps the issue. While an in-depth discussion of areas of overlap and difference between the two professions might have been beyond the scope Of this book, greater consideration of what might be unique to counselling could have made it even richer. I will return to this topic later.
The book divides into three sections. The first, consisting of three chapters, concerns the conceptual and theoretical framework that underpins counselling young people. An overview of adolescence is given, with adolescence seen as a time of transition when childhood modes need to be mourned (“but in such a way that the present incorporates the future” (p. 27)), before the individual can experience and establish himself as a young adult. The picture presented of the conflicting forces at work during this period, together with the many possibilities for difficulties, is a vivid one, and illustrated by the first of the numerous clinical examples cited in the book. An inte