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• What made you decide to become a therapist?
  The immediate trigger was back in 1976, attending a weeklong residential course for teachers run by what was then the National Marriage Guidance Council. It was the most original and exhilarating educational experience I have ever had.
  
  But the underlying motivation can be traced back to the age of four when early one cold autumn morning in the mid 1950s, I struggled alone and in vain to wake my mother. She had died in her sleep. It was an experience that taught me the pain of abandonment, the illusion of security in our lives, and how it feels to go unheard.
  
  What were your hopes when you became a therapist?
  To be a good one; no more, no less.
  
  Have they changed and, if so, in what ways?
  That aim remains the same, but perhaps these days I understand a little better what being a good therapist entails. For example, I no longer endeavour to ‘move my clients on’ the way I once did. I think the best therapy doesn’t set out to change people; rather it endeavours to understand and appreciate how and why we are as we are. Funnily enough, when that is done well, people usually begin to think and feel differently about themselves and their lives; therein lies the real change.
  
  What do you think makes a good therapist?
  A high capacity for empathy across a wide range of people and experiences; the imagination and will to be always curious, and never forgetting that the client is a person and not a dysfunction or collection of symptoms. These are the essentials. Knowing one’s own limits and vulnerabilities are two more, as well as not allowing client work to take the place of your relationships outside the therapy room. Patrick Chime (the main character in my novel Listening In: a Novel of Therapy and Real Life) made that mistake. So did I, back in my early days, but not any more.
  
  What is the best advice you have received, and why?
  When two people can’t agree how to divide something up fairly between them, ask one of them to cut the cake and the other to choose which piece they want. If I’d been given that little gem of wisdom as a young man it would have saved me many years of anguish as a parent.
  
  What values do you hold dear?
  Let’s start with the four existential truths: we are alone, life has no obvious meaning, we’ll die, and we are free. To which I’ll add four more of my own:
  
  1    One of the most important human rights is the right to be unhappy.
  2    I have a responsibility to my clients rather than for them.
  3    Truth is painful, but usually worth it.
  4    Everything ends in tears (once you get used to the idea it’s strangely comforting).
  
  What do you enjoy about being a therapist?
  The boundary of the clock; the drama as clients put the authenticity of therapy to the test; the endless fascination of words and meanings, and those precious moments when the masks of client and therapist fall to the floor and true meeting takes place.
  
  What do you find most challenging?
  Listening to the cries of ailing hearts (especially when they’re in hiding). And listening hard and well to those whose attitudes I find unpalatable or repugnant. And couple counselling, which is much harder than one-to-one work and not all counsellors/therapists have what it takes.
  
  Which books have you read that inspired you?
  Necessary Losses by Judith Viorst. Forms of Feeling: The Heart of Psychotherapy by Robert E Hobson. Mate and Stalemate by Janet Mattinson and Ian Sinclair, and almost anything by David Smail. But above all the last page of Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath.
  
  Has becoming a therapist changed you?
  Undoubtedly. For the better, I think, although others may disagree. I’m more comfortable with myself these days and therefore less dependent on others for my self-esteem, and that can sometimes make me appear a little aloof or indifferent. Three decades of doing couple therapy means I’ve become very adept at sitting on the fence. That’s why I need my regular dose of watching football, as it allows me the freedom to take sides. 
  
  Has your view of the role of therapy in a changing society altered since qualifying?
  Yes. Although I am proud of how I earn a living, I also think the professionalising of heartfelt listening has had a detrimental effect on society in that it undermines the value and potential of ordinary people to listen deeply and well to each other. I deplore the burgeoning fashion of pathologising clients: such labels, objectify and de-personalise, and have more to do with the defensive peace of mind of the profession(als) than with the needs of the client.

• Kevin Chandler is a counsellor and supervisor in private practice in Holmfirth, West Yorkshire, and supervision consultant for Relate. He is also author of Listening In: a Novel of Therapy and Real Life, and of the novella Fifty-Minute Hour (in the collection 8 Hours)