COUNSELLING FOR PROGRESSIVE DISABILITY:

person-centred dialogues

Richard Bryant-Jefferies

ISBN 1 85775 898 6

Counsellors, psychotherapists and other health and social care professionals are frequently faced with clients who are coming to terms with a diagnosis of progressive disability, or who are seeking counselling to enable them to come to terms with the limiting effect of their condition as it progressively worsens.

This book provides a new realism in understanding the world of a person faced with progressive disability. The book illustrates this with two fictitious dialogues between a client and counsellor and supervision sessions. The first client is faced with the diagnosis, the second with coming to terms with accepting they must use a wheelchair. The author uses multiple-sclerosis as the actual disability however it is written with the intention of having application to people faced with a range of disabling conditions. Fictitious dialogue is used as a method to enable the reader to appreciate the nature of counselling a person with progressive disability through the application of person-centred counselling theory. It provides deep insights into what goes on in counselling sessions, into the counselling relationship and how this links into the counsellor's own supervision. It is essential reading for all counselling trainers, supervisors and trainees, and for novice and experienced counsellors. It also provides useful approaches and frameworks for other caring professions, and many valuable insights for clients themselves.

"The author has successfully undertaken the difficult task of trying to bring the practice of person-centred psychotherapy closer to the reader. He has done this in such a way that it is possible to follow the process of the client step by step. The book presents two counselling processes which unfold throughout the chapters. In between, the author has inserted small frames in which he zooms in on what is happening in the counselling relationship. At times he refers to person-centred theory or adds explanations with clinical content. The counselling process is reflected upon in supervision sessions which give a good insight into person-centred supervision. Thus, the reader can learn about three aspects at the same time: the process a progressive disability induces, a person-centred way of working with that issue and person-centred supervision.

While the book will be useful to any person-centred psychotherapist working with clients who are struggling with such life issues as demonstrated here, it will be invaluable to newcomers to the Person-Centred Approach and to trainees who are developing their practical skills for person-centred work. I am convinced that this book will not only make the Person-Centred Approach accessible to a wider audience, but also increase the general acceptance and empathy for persons with disabilities. "

Elisabeth Zinschitz, President of OEGWG (Austrian Client-Centred Association), Clinical Director of Child Protection Centre, Vienna, in her Foreword

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