On Being a Client: Understanding the Process of Counselling and Psychotherapy

There is a growing interest in what clients have to say about their experiences of counselling and psychotherapy. In a powerful analysis of this subject, David Howe identifies a number of clear and potent messages that transcend the complexity of counselling and psychotherapeutic thought and practice.

The consumer's view gives effective support to the importance of the counselling relationship. But why do clients say the things they say? Why does the therapeutic alliance hold out such promise? Using the client's experience as a platform, the author seeks to create a general theory of counselling and psychotherapy.

In pursuing his objective, David Howe draws on a number of new and exciting ideas emerging in developmental psychology, sociology and the brain sciences to discuss the process by which the human infant becomes an individual as well as a competent social being. From the basis that the social and psychological structures which generate the client's experience underlie all psychotherapeutic encounters, the book then explores how the self forms and then re-forms in social relationships, including those established during counselling and psychotherapy. In conclusion, the reader is invited to consider a number of thought-provoking claims about the universal qualities that characterize good and bad practice in all schools of counselling, therapy and the helping process.

This highly distinctive and accessible analysis will be invaluable for all counsellors and psychotherapists - both those in training and those already established in practice.