Implausible Professions
Arguments for Pluralism and Autonomy in Psychotherapy and Counselling
edited by Richard House and Nick Totton
Can psychotherapy and counselling be reduced to a set of objective expert skills?
Is a core theoretical model necessary - or possible?
What model of accountability is truly congruent with the values of therapeutic work?
Can effective practitionership be 'trained in'?
Can therapy ever be made 'safe'?
Can psychotherapy and counselling ever constitute plausible 'professions'?
Are there viable practical alternatives to current models of professionalisation?
These are some of the challenges that this thought-provoking anthology offers to conventional thinking about psychotherapy and counselling. the contributors, including several extremely well-known figures in the field, collectively throw into questuion many of the most taken-for-granted assumptions on which the 'professionalisation' and commodification of psychotherapy and counselling are based. Their essays display the creative pluralism and passionate vitality which typify the best aspects of therapeutic work.
Implausible Professions will be essential reading for anyone involved in the therapeutic field today; because no one. from the most senior trainer to the newest trainee, can avoid taking a position on these fundamental questions about the place of therapy and counselling in the post modern world.
348pp; 28 chapters by authors including John Heron, Andrew Samuels, Peter Lomas, Brian Thorne and David Smail.
ISBN 1-898059-17-9
£14 from PCCS Books, Llangarron, Ross on Wye HR9 6PT, United Kingdom. Phone ++1989 770707.
These are some of the challenges that this thought-provoking anthology offers to conventional thinking about psychotherapy and counselling. the contributors, including several extremely well-known figures in the field, collectively throw into questuion many of the most taken-for-granted assumptions on which the 'professionalisation' and commodification of psychotherapy and counselling are based. Their essays display the creative pluralism and passionate vitality which typify the best aspects of therapeutic work.
Implausible Professions will be essential reading for anyone involved in the therapeutic field today; because no one. from the most senior trainer to the newest trainee, can avoid taking a position on these fundamental questions about the place of therapy and counselling in the post modern world.
348pp; 28 chapters by authors including John Heron, Andrew Samuels, Peter Lomas, Brian Thorne and David Smail.
ISBN 1-898059-17-9
£14 from PCCS Books, Llangarron, Ross on Wye HR9 6PT, United Kingdom. Phone ++1989 770707.