Books in the Overviews & Guides reviews section offer a broad perspective on the fields of counselling and psychotherapy.
In stark contrast to the stereotypical Western therapist forever distracting the client from their stories about the world in order to ask “but how do you feel?”, the Other Centred therapist listens carefully to the stories themselves. Indeed, this book presents examples of client work in which the therapist asks the opposite question about a partner whose behaviour the client is complaining about: “but what was that like for him?”.
Brazier reminds us that counselling often goes beyond offering a non-judgemental space in which the client can listen to and experience themselves, to actively encourage a kind of self-preoccupation which can actually make one more isolated and miserable.
Seemingly aimed both at students and at internet-illiterates, this book provides fairly comprehensive coverage of the history and development of online counseling. As a practical guide or handbook, however, it lacks depth.
Written by four luminaries of the mindfulness movement in psychotherapy and counselling, The Mindful Way through Depression is a self-help book in the best sense of the term, and you don’t need to suffer from depression to find it useful.
Comprehensive, clear and well referenced, this guide to the theory and practice of dealing with ambiguous loss — loss without closure — provides a realistic hope, not that we will “get over it”, but that it is possible to live with the uncertainty and the unknown.
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