In terms of print resources designed to help individual clients navigate the wide range of counselling and psychotherapy options, this book is at or near the top of the list. Concise, comprehensible, and practical, it is probably one of the best investments a prospective client can make prior to beginning counselling.

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Despite clear evidence demonstrating the effectiveness of counselling and psychotherapy, pinning down specific reasons for effectiveness or identifying particularly effective approaches remains tricky. (NOTE: The review of Hubble, et al 1999 includes a great deal of additional information on the topic of effectiveness in therapy.)

While suffering somewhat from a lack of focus on the book’s intended themes, the individual contributions in this edited collection of 16 chapters nonetheless make worthwhile reading in and of themselves. (Review originally published in 2003.)

Regarded as the textbook of research on the effectiveness of counselling and psychotherapy, this volume is a favourite of practitioners who approach their work in an empirical spirit. While tracing research developments gradually as individual papers appear remains an important part of being well-informed about the field, the reviews and meta-analyses offered in this massive volume provide a very efficient entree into the research literature and a simple way of understanding the primary themes and tentative conclusions emerging from empirical research across the world.

For over four decades, the message from psychotherapy outcome research has been getting clearer: the theories and techniques of professional therapy have very little to do with therapeutic success.

At a time when Complementary and Alternative Therapies have (again) been under fire from some university scientists for falsely claiming scientific status, and in an era of evidence-based psychotherapy, this book is a key text. It should have a place on all postgraduate counselling and psychotherapy courses, but I suspect it will not be so readily accommodated.