Practitioners, critics and commentators from psychotherapy and counselling discuss classic controversies and contemporary debates. Writers from Britain, North America and Australia take sides on many topical and core issues, including: does the unconscious really exist?; should one believe in "false memories"?; is therapy effective?; are psychotherapy and counselling really distinguishable; and does therapy benefit individuals or amount to social control? The answers to these and other contentious questions have implications for the credibility and future of the field. The text seeks to provoke thought about the pivotal subjects discussed and either challenge assumptions or confirm suspicions.
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?
Controversies in Psychotherapy and Counselling - Colin Feltham PART ONE: THEORETICAL ISSUES Does the Unconscious Mind Really Exist? - E M Thornton On the Existence of the Unconscious - Tim Kendall and Peter Speedwell Primal Therapies - Stillborn Theories - Jennifer M Cunningham The Trauma of Birth - John Rowan False Memories - A Peripheral Issue? - Roger Scotford Believing Patients - Majorie Orr PART TWO: CLINICAL ISSUES The Ineffectiveness of Psychotherapy - W M Epstein It Has Been Amply Demonstrated that Psychotherapy Is Effective - Stephen Saunders The Main Change Agent in Effective Psychotherapy Is Specific Technique and Skill - Albert Ellis The Main Change Agent in Psychotherapy Is the Relationship between Therapist and Client - David Howe Deconstructing Diagnosis - Ian Parker Psychopathological Practice Psychopathology Is a Reality and Psychodiagnosis Is a Necessity - Norman D Macaskill The Limitations of Boundaries - Derek Gale Maintaining Boundaries in Psychotherapy - David Livingstone Smith A View from Evolutionary Psychoanalysis PART THREE: PROFESSIONAL ISSUES Personal Therapy as a Training Requirement - Ann Macaskill The Lack of Supporting Evidence In Defence of Therapy for Training - Valerie Sinason Becoming an Effective Psychotherapist or Counsellor - Jim McLellan Are Training and Supervision Necessary? Training and Supervision Make a Difference - Mary Connor Against and beyond Core Theoretical Models - Colin Feltham Training in a Core Theoretical Model Is Essential - Sue Wheeler Professionalization of Therapy by Registration Is Unnecessary, Ill-Advised and Damaging - Richard Mowbray Registration Benefits and Is Necessary to the Public and the Profession - Digby Tantam Psychotherapy and Counselling Are Indistinguishable - Brian Thorne There Are Real Differences between Psychotherapy and Counselling - Jan Harvie-Clarke PART FOUR: SOCIAL ISSUES Stress Discourse and Individualization - Tim Newton Employee Assistance Programmes and Stress Counselling - John Berridge At a Crossroads? Psychotherapy and Counselling as Unproven, Overblown and Unconvincing - Alex Howard Psychotherapy as Essential Care - Jeremy Holmes Mind at the End of Its Tether - Fay Weldon Counselling and Psychotherapy as Enabling and Empowering - Sheelagh Strawbridge
`The book is written in a lucid conersational style and while it is accessible to non-specialists, few concessions are made for those who do not share the underlying tenets on which it is based.... Controversies in Psychotherapy and Counselling stands as a refreshing antidote to all those mutually affirming books on therapy. A little more grit of this sort may just help to make therapy the mature and socially beneficial pearl it potentially could be' - Journal of Critical Psychology, Counselling and Psychotherapy `Editor Colin Feltham's choice of topics shows an astute, on the ground awareness of the issues that dog the industry, while still making lively reading' - New Therapist `My congratulations to Colin Feltham for assembling a set of contentious issues and lively authors which together made me forget my surroundings' - Person-Centred Practice
