Table of Contents

Introduction: What Is Critical Thinking?
PART ONE: EVERYDAY COUNSELLING PRACTICE
What Are the Pros and Cons of Unconditional Positive Regard?
How Important Are Boundaries in Counselling Practice?
What Form Should Assessment Take?
Is Eclecticism as Bad as the Bad Press It′s Had?
What Are the Pros and Cons of Short-Term, Time-Limited Counselling?
What′s Wrong with Counsellor Self-Disclosure?
How Crucial Are Counselling Ethics?
Can You Counsel Effectively When Affected by Illness or Personal Troubles?
Does It Matter if Empathy Is Not Matched by Personal Experience?
PART TWO: TRAINING AND CURRICULUM ISSUES
Is Training Necessary?
Who Is Suitable to Be a Counsellor?
Should Men Counsel?
How Important Is the Trainee′s Own Personal Therapy?
Why Have We Focused on Core Theoretical Models?
How Much Is Theory Related to Practice?
Are Colleges and Universities the Best Places to Train Counsellors?
How Necessary Is Psychology to Counselling?
How Might Counselling Be Expanded as an Academic Subject?
PART THREE: THEORIES OF COUNSELLING PRACTICE
Who Founds Schools of Counselling and Why?
Which Theories of Human Development Are Most Relevant in Counselling Training and Practice?
How Do Genes, Personality, Object Relations and Life Events Interact?
What Roles Do Chance, Destiny and Control Play in Our Lives?
What′s Wrong with Psychoanalytic Therapy?
What Are the Limitations of the Person-centred Approach?
What′s Wrong with CBT?
PART FOUR: PROFESSIONAL ISSUES AND INFRASTRUCTURES
Who Owns Counselling?
Do We Need Supervision Forever?
Where Is Research Taking us?
Is Statutory Regulation a Good and Inevitable Development?
What Are the Differences between Counselling, Psychotherapy, Psychoanalysis, Clinical and Counselling Psychology?
How Buoyant or Otherwise Is the Job Market for Counsellors?
How Should We Respond to Clients′ Views and Complaints?
PART FIVE: COUNSELLING, SOCIETY AND CULTURE
How Important Are ′Social Contexts of Counselling′ as a Component of Training?
Can Counselling be a Countercultural Activity?
How Much Should Counsellors Charge?
Whatever happened to Self-Analysis, Co-Counselling, Group and Social Therapy?
Are We Counselling on a Dying Planet?
PART SIX: SPIRITUAL AND PHILOSOPHICAL ISSUES
Does Counselling Rest on Faith and Hope?
Are Life, Training and Counselling Part of a ′Journey′?
Can Counselling Make You Enlightened?
Whatever Happened to Free Will and Willpower?
Do we Need to Have a View about the World/Reality/Existence Itself?
PART SEVEN: COUNSELLING WISDOM
Is Counselling Non-directive and Value-Free?
Is It All about the Relationship?
Does the Client Know Best?
Must Counselling Embrace an Optimistic View of Human Nature and Potential?
PART EIGHT: THE SPECTRUM OF SUFFERING
Can Counselling or Psychotherapy Help People with Serious Mental-Health Problems?
Are We All Neurotic?
Are There Limits to Personal Change in Counselling?
Which Undiscovered Diagnostic Categories Might There Be?
Is the Human Species Anthropathological?
PART NINE: PERENNIAL AND CURRENT TOPICS
How Much Depends on the Client?
Is Counselling Primarily a Heartfelt Activity?
Is Counselling Scientific?
What to Think about Suicide?
What Is the Future for Couple Counselling?
Why Has Counselling Had So Many Detractors?
To What Extent Is Counselling Reliant on Illusions?
Who Is the ′Person of Tomorrow′?
What Does the Writer Really Think?

About the Author

Colin Feltham is series editor of Professional Skills for Counsellors and Short Introductions to the Therapy Professions series, co-editor of SAGE Handbook of Counselling and Psychotherapy and author of several SAGE texts, including What is Counselling?