In this issue
Features
Workplace wellbeing in a time of austerity (free article)
Bina Convey reports on how employers are turning to counsellors to cut the costs of sickness absence.
The threat to FE counselling
Jane Darougar argues that cuts within FE organisations threaten the security of both counsellor and client.
Mixed race identity and counselling
Nicola Codner calls on counsellors to learn more about the needs of those with a mixed race identity.
Bending boundaries in oncology counselling
Caroline Armstrong describes the dilemmas in her work as an oncology counsellor in a large teaching hospital.
Open Dialogue
Jane Hetherington introduces a model of support for people with long-term mental illness based on person-centred principles and dialogue.
Mental imagery in counselling
Val Thomas discusses the contribution mental imagery can make to therapeutic processes across modalities.
Regulars
Your views
David Mair: Are we really making world-class minds?
Karin Parkinson: Personal therapy and training
How I became a therapist
Karen Cromarty
Dilemmas
Confronting challenges in the supervisory relationship
From the chair
Andrew Reeves reflects on counselling as a political activity
A pdf of this issue is available in the Therapy Today archive
Editorial: The threat to FE counselling
The image of the bulldozer made its first appearance on the counselling scene eight years ago with the fight to save counselling after the arrival of IAPT. This time it is counselling services in Further Education that are being obliterated. Jane Darougar, herself a counsellor in a sixth form college, describes the importance of supporting students in FE colleges, many of whom are disadvantaged or adult learners returning to education. The massive funding cuts to Further Education have resulted in the demise of more and more college counselling services with counsellors having to support clients through abrupt endings as their services are being axed.
David Mair, the new editor of University & College Counselling, writes about the different pressures faced by university counselling services which, while not necessarily facing the cuts and closures in FE, are operating within an increasingly difficult culture. As David puts it, ‘The drive within HE to position institutions as global success stories filters down to all of us who work there… Can university and college counselling services… really play any meaningful
role in countering the stress-inducing marketing slogans of our employers and wider society, and the additional pressures these create for students?’
And finally… this is my last edition as editor of Therapy Today. It’s actually hard to put into words how this feels after 13 years as editor. I was comforted a few years ago when I spoke to Rich Simon, the editor of Psychotherapy Networker, who had done 30 years as editor and is still going strong! I took over editorship in 2002 and created Therapy Today in 2005 and have witnessed many challenging and interesting times in the development of the profession. It has been a privilege to read so many inspiring articles and letters about the work that BACP members do. And it is heartening to see that in our latest readership survey 83 per cent of you find the journal very useful or quite useful to your work. I hope that the journal will go from strength to strength and continue to be an important forum for debate and sharing of best practice and new ideas.
I would also like to pay tribute to Laura Read, our Production Co-ordinator, who will be leaving at the end of the year. Laura has worked brilliantly behind the scenes putting the journal together and managing and developing TherapyToday.net for the last six years.
I wish you all well for the future.
Sarah Browne
Editor