Is it true that counsellors “cannot give” advice or information? I have found that my position has changed over the years, that I have needed to investigate my primary bias as a counsellor, that other people “should be” in the flow of experiencing and I am there purely to facilitate their own growth.

Finding, cultivating, even celebrating an ability to accept ourselves in all our messy imperfection is a major element of counselling. The idea of the perfect counsellor is one which we need to dispel, rather than apologising for not living up to it.

First it was a problem supposedly only for gay men, drug users, and the promiscuous, then for Eastern Europeans and Africans, and now it is women who are said to bear the brunt of the virus and be the ones who should empower themselves and stop the virus in its tracks. Women taking responsibility for men’s behaviour. Sound familiar?