Preface

The ‘Practice of Counselling and Psychotherapy’ is a collaboration among the counselling educators in the Master of Counselling program at the University of Queensland. As a counselling team we saw the need to provide a text which reflected the content and priorities of our program, and more broadly of the practice of counselling and psychotherapy. Each counselling program is informed by a philosophy of practice. Being conscious of the foundational principles and values of a program of study is essential because in the end we practice what we actually believe, not necessarily what we espouse. Hopefully what we espouse and what we convey to students via our teaching and practice are closely aligned.

This book covers a range of content that is relatively common in the field, but it also adds knowledge and a focus which is peculiar to the shared views and values of our staff team. The content of some of the eleven chapters will be familiar to many mental health professionals. What might be less commonly encountered in a text on counselling and psychotherapy is a strong focus on what it is to be a self, especially a self that is grappling with the challenges of life. The phenomenology of two or more people (client and counsellor) in a deep and personal encounter is examined in these pages. Said another way, our focus is on the process of therapy – what actually happens in therapy. We need theory to inform us, but we also need a way of being which reaches the person of the client. Hopefully in these pages we have managed to convey something of what it is to genuinely be with another in the context of therapy.

Denis O’Hara