Related articles

• In this issue we hear from a doctor who worked in palliative care and retrained as a counsellor because of his interest in the psychological support of his dying patients we hear about research carried out into the grief experience of mothers who have lost a child. And we ask, is bereavement counselling viable?
  
  It’s interesting how our ideas about what is normal grief and what is seen as pathological have evolved over time. We are now more likely to see people’s need to maintain bonds with the deceased as healthy and to be encouraged, whereas the emphasis in bereavement counselling in the past was on helping clients to let go and finally accept the loss of the loved one – a more rigid British kind of attitude perhaps.
  
  So in Gail Ashton’s moving exploration of mothers grieving for a child, the need to keep the memory of the child alive – talking to the child, keeping their bedrooms and their things as they were – may play a positive part in the processing of grief. But are there times when this ‘holding on’ becomes unhelpful and implies an inability to ‘get on with one’s own life’, whatever that may mean?
  
  Moving on to training, Julie Folkes-Skinner’s article highlights a problem that I have never heard openly discussed: that is the disadvantage that becomes apparent for trainees with no background in caring when they move from a foundation to a professional training. In my experience, the prospect of having clients after a year’s foundation with no previous experience of client work was utterly daunting. There is a huge gap between students who have come from the caring professions and those who have come from, say, telesales and that needs to be addressed.
  
  Finally, we have included a submission that was recently made by BACP to the House of Commons Select Committee Inquiry into NICE (the National Institute for Clinical Excellence) which relates to the psychological therapies as delivered in the NHS. I find this a hugely impressive document, setting out a clear and strong position for BACP in relation to NICE’s evaluation process and would urge you all to read it.