I have to disagree with Wendy Jefferson’s contention that because a drug addict or alcoholic may not be able, of their own volition, to break their addiction they have no choice (Therapy Today, July 2009). But it is important to properly define the parameters of choice. Clearly, to say to an alcoholic you have a choice: drink or stop drinking would be callous and unrealistic. As it would be to tell clients who are anxious or depressed that they can snap out of it if they want to. If it were as simple as that, who would come for counselling?

I would submit that her client did have the power to choose and exercised that choice. He had two options; to do nothing about his problem or to seek help in trying to deal with it. He chose to seek help and began the essential process of self-empowerment. Whatever opportunities for clients emerge during the course of counselling, it will always be their choice whether or not to act upon them. One could argue that someone confined to prison has no choice because he is obliged to stay until released. But how constructively he spends his time inside is very much his choice, which is why therapists and educators play a major role in penal institutions.

I do encourage my clients to recognise productive options from the outset. For anyone to feel that they are powerlessly at the whim of arbitrary outside forces, I believe is dangerously debilitating. A person who holds this view is indeed stuck. Encouraging clients to recognise that coming for counselling is a choice that no one has authority to make but themselves can be the first vital step on the road to recovery, however long and arduous that may be.

Jonathan Ingrams MBACP