As someone involved in the training of counsellors for almost 15 years, I would like to applaud Juliet Higdon for her article in July’s CPJ.

As well as being a trainer, I am also employed as both an internal and external verifier/ moderator for counselling courses run by other organisations. I often find  that the work of Freud and other psychodynamic theorists has been presented to students in a simplistic, superficial and dismissive fashion so it is hardly surprising that they will conclude that they ‘don’t see the point of psychodynamic’. If their trainers don’t understand it themselves, how can they pass it on?



Trainers, surely, need to make certain that students have the correct information about a range of theories in order for them to be able to make an informed choice as to which approach is right for them and their clients. Despite what some authors would wish us to believe, theories of counselling have not sprung up independently of one another. They have evolved over time, with each theorist building on and adapting the work of his/her predecessors.



Jung and Erikson, for example, provide us with a rich source of challenging ideas that can be used creatively in therapy. Let us not deprive the next generation of counsellors of this material.

Martin Owen 
MBACP (Accred) Principal Tutor Counselling & Training Services SAWTRY