Experiences of counselling in action - Dave Mearns

`How hard it is to find a book to recommend to trainees, which will give them an insight into what counselling (and psychotherapy too, for that matter) is really like. This book does exactly that.... This is a book which would be equally useful to the humanistic practitioner and the more orthodox one. The breadth of sympathy is admirable in dealing with what is common to all orientations. This is one of those rare books which does justice both to the human experiences involved in counselling and psychotherapy, and to the theory which might explain those experiences - Changes

What is the experience of counselling from the perspectives of both client and counsellor? What can be learned for the practice of counselling from an understanding of how it feels to be a client or a counsellor? Addressing these questions, central to this book are the personal accounts of individual clients and counsellors, who each relate their own very different experiences of counselling. They explore such issues as identity, expectations, trust, power and boundaries in the client-counsellor relationship. And each examines the intense personal meanings of `success or `failure in the client or counsellor role. An analysis of the implications for the counselling relationship concludes the volume.