The first session

Abstract

Problem-focused counselling is usually delivered within a framework of hour-long weekly sessions with the number of sessions agreed established either at the point of referral or the first session. This involves the counsellor in making some sort of diagnosis — even though Rogers has said that this is not necessary. Even Kahn’s ‘middle way between the schools of warm support and those of neutral transference analysis …’ accepts that there will be continual, automatic diagnosis and that ‘all people with emotional problems suffer from deficits of the self and could benefit from … empathic therapy’ (Kahn, 1997: 175). In most problem-focused counselling the therapeutic relationship is seen as different from all others the client engages in as the hour-long session distances the client from other relationships and heightens that with the counsellor, thus there is great emphasis on the importance of the therapist in the client’s life. This results in concern over how not only transference is handled but also endings. Winnicott described this relationship as resembling the primary maternal relationship:

in which the mother is something for the infant more than she does for him. Without actually establishing a regressed mother—infant relationship, a counsellor can meet the fundamental needs for that relatedness and for the space within which personal exploration and discovery can go on without interference from ‘grown-up’ demands and consequences. (Noonan, 1983: 65–6)