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There has been a rapid development in counselling and psychotherapy in General Practice. Whilst there is a growing literature on counselling in primary health care, less has been written about psychodynamic psychotherapy in
this context. This comprehensive book is written by a Jungian analyst and a psychoanalytical psychotherapist, both of whom have extensive experience of working in General Practice. It is one of the Basic Texts in Counselling and Psychotherapy series, aimed at a wide range of professionals, and as such introduces psychodynamic ideas in an accessible manner, with an informative index. Up to a third of general practices now employ some form of counselling help. Little is known of the range of training and experience represented, and I suspect this is a potential problem for GPs’ patients, and this book attempts to address this. It is known that therapeutic styles range from Rogerian counselling to psychodynamic psychotherapy to ‘eclectic’, with a worrying 28 per cent of counsellors having no formal qualification. In writing about counselling/psychotherapy in primary health care, the authors are therefore describing a broad church; and although some of the opportunities and challenges available in General Practice apply whatever form of counselling/psychotherapy is applied, it is also the case that there are considerable differences in beliefs and techniques within these disciplines.
The book gives a realistic account of the opportunities and challenges of the work. It is striking that in General Practice there is volume and variety of work carried out in an atmosphere of intense need and limited resources. The authors refer to the insatiable and undiscriminating emotional needs of the patients who are making more direct requests for counselling/psychotherapy and they use the metaphor of the ‘souk’ to describe the atmosphere in Primary Care as opposed to the more formal outpatient Psychotherapy Department, the ‘citadel’. I liked this metaphor for ca