Centuries ago we learned that lack of vitamin C causes scurvy and now getting enough of this vitamin is known to be a necessity for good health. For good mental health, a nurturing mother figure (“vitamin M”, if you will) is just as important.

Asperger’s as a diagnosis can appear to preclude the existence of fulfilling human relationships for the young people concerned. But Bromfield’s “relationship-based therapy” for his young clients shows that they have the same human needs for relationship as others, they just have trouble expressing them in socially proficient ways.

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.

This book seems to contain all of human life, from the scientific details through the full range of emotions, including the extremes of love and hate. And it emanates a sense that although we all get shaken sometimes, and life is dangerous, every feeling is expressible and every situation is workable.

This book is important reading, as it competently deals with the treatment of a major health issue which is both prevalent and chronic, with strong co-morbidity. While the tone didn’t particularly engage me, I did finish the book with some insights and solid understanding.

The basic conceptualisation of human experience offered by this book is that distress arises from our relationship with our own internal experience. The remedy goes beyond (and could be seen as contrary to) the traditional cognitive therapy approach of disentangling the client from the thoughts, questioning them and replacing them with more realistic and helpful ones.