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メイン Freelance Counselling and Psychotherapy: Competition and Collaboration
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Freelance Counselling and Psychotherapy There are far more qualified counsellors and therapists than there are salaried posts, so many recently qualified practitioners face the challenges of working freelance. They often face a difficult period of adjustment as they seek to find work, in competition with colleagues and fellow ex-students. Freelance Counselling and Psychotherapy is an excellent guide on surviving and flourishing in a highly challenging field. Written by practitioners with extensive experience of the practical and emotional aspects of working independently, it covers the range of issues and choices which confront newly qualified practitioners, for example: • • • • Regulation, registration and accreditation Supervision Financial issues in freelance therapy The dynamics of competition and collaboration Several contributors write about their experiences as they struggled to establish themselves, faced with these choices and challenges. As freelance working continues to grow, more practitioners are needing reliable knowledge and informed understanding of the demands of working independently. This highly readable book provides an 'insider's' view of the field, and will be essential reading for trainers, established practitioners and newly qualified therapists alike. Jean Clark has worked professionally as a counsellor since 1971, when she set up the first Student Counselling Service at Leicester Polytechnic. She is a Fellow of the British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy, and a UKRC Registered Independent Counsellor and since 1982 has worked as a freelance counsellor, supervisor and trainer. Contributors: Tania Barnett, Benita Cowen, Joe Daggers, Colin Feltham, Ian Horton, Leebert Hughes, Charlotte Johnson, Jacky Moss, Gabrielle Syme, Keith Tudor, Gerry Virgo, Sue Wheeler, Nigel White, Mike Worrall Freelance Counselling and Psychotherapy Competition and collaboration Edited by Jean Clark First published 2002 by Brunner-Routledge 27 Church Road, Hove, East Sussex, BN3 2FA Simu; ltaneously published in the USA and Canada by Taylor & Francis Inc 29 West 35th Street, New York, NY 10001 Brunner-Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2005. "To purchase your own copy of this or any of Taylor & Francis or Routledge's collection of thousands of eBooks please go to www.eBookstore.tandf.co.uk." © 2002 Selection and editorial matter Jean Clark; individual chapters, the contributors Cover design by Jim Wilkie. Cover illustration by Jean Lamb All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Freelance counselling and psychotherapy: competition and collaboration/edited by Jean Clark. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-415-23724-6—ISBN 0-415-23725-4 (pbk) 1. Psychology—Vocational guidance. 2. Counseling—Vocational guidance. 3. Self-employed. I. Clark, Jean, 1926– BF76. F74 2002 361'.06–dc21 2001043183 ISBN 0-203-36131-8 Master e-book ISBN ISBN 0-203-37387-1 (Adobe eReader Format) ISBN 0-415-23724-6 (hbk) ISBN 0-415-23725-4 (pbk) No one told me it would lead to this David Whyte Fire in the Earth Contents Contributors vii Foreword ix Acknowledgements BRIAN THORNE xi Introduction JEAN CLARK 1 PART I Some facts and tensions 1 The development and growth of freelance counselling GABRIELLE SYME 2 The internal dynamics of freelance JEAN CLARK PART II Setting up as freelance 7 9 21 37 3 Starting in private practice COLIN FELTHAM 39 4 Regulation, registration and accreditation: some issues IAN HORTON 51 5 Sorting out supervision SUE WHEELER 67 6 The unspoken relationship: financial dynamics in freelance therapy KEITH TUDOR AND MIKE WORRALL 83 PART III The dynamics of survival 7 The loneliness and freedoms of change JEAN CLARK 8 A therapist in the family TANIA BARNETT 93 95 107 vi 9 Personal and professional development JEAN CLARK PART IV Survival in practice 117 133 10 The early years 135 JOE DAGGERS, JACKY MOSS, LEEBERT HUGHES AND GERRY VIRGO 11 Counselling in primary care BENITA COWEN AND NIGEL WHITE 151 12 Working with Employee Assistance Programmes CHARLOTTE JOHNSON 165 13 Working from home: a psychotherapist with long-term clients 181 GABRIELLE SYME Postscript JEAN CLARK 193 Recommended reading 195 Index 197 Contributors Tania Barnett has worked as a part-time freelance individual and group counsellor for eight years in education, social services and a primary care counselling agency, and as a tutor in communication, counselling and management skills in higher education at the University of East Anglia. Jean Clark is a BACP Fellow. In 1971 she set up a Student Counselling Service at Leicester Polytechnic, and was Senior Counsellor until 1981. Since then, while working freelance, she initiated the Norfolk trauma counselling network, supervised a hospice bereavement service and is a trustee for a voluntary counselling agency. Benita Cowen is a freelance counsellor, psychotherapist, trainer and supervisor. Her particular interest is in the political psychology of primary care counselling. She is actively involved nationally in offering consultation and advice on the development of counselling to health authorities, primary care groups and counsellors. Joe Daggers is a person-centred freelance counsellor who has been working in private practice for three years. Before turning to counselling, he worked for 20 years as a music librarian in public libraries. As well as counselling, he also tutors privately in English and history. Colin Feltham is Senior Lecturer in Counselling at Sheffield Hallam University, co-editor of the British Journal of Guidance and Counselling and has been a practising counsellor and supervisor for 20 years in a variety of settings. Ian Horton is Principal Lecturer in Counselling and Psychotherapy in the Department of Psychology at the University of London. He is a Fellow of BACP, Chair of the UKRC Executive and a BACP Accredited and UKRC Registered Independent Counsellor. Leebert Hughes is a freelance counsellor and lecturer, working in primary care and private practice. He lectures at Salford University and teaches counselling for the Manchester Adult Education Service. He specialises in relationship and bereavement counselling. viii Charlotte Johnson is a BACP Senior Registered Counsellor. She has experience of working with EAPs as a telephone affiliate, a face-to-face affiliate and an on-site counsellor. She works freelance in primary care and private practice, and as a supervisor and trainer. Jacky Moss: after 22 years of teaching and many happy years offering art and drama to students with behavioural problems, she retrained as a personcentred counsellor. She now works as a freelance practitioner alongside her job as an addiction counsellor and group facilitator in two drug rehabilitation units. Gabrielle Syme has worked as a freelance counsellor, psychotherapist, trainer and supervisor for over 20 years and for three years was Chair of BAC. Her particular interests are standards and ethics, developing good practice and bereavement, which are reflected in her three books. Keith Tudor is a qualified, experienced and registered psychotherapist, a supervisor and trainer. He is a Director of Temenos in Sheffield and the author of a number of articles and papers in the field of counselling and psychotherapy. Gerry Virgo added enthusiasm for the person-centred approach to a varied career in science and education, and now works as a youth counselling service coordinator and freelance practitioner. Sue Wheeler is a Senior Lecturer in Counselling at the University of Birmingham. She leads a supervision training programme and other continuing development courses for experienced counsellors. She has recently been awarded a doctorate for her published work investigating the professionalisation of counselling. Nigel White is a counsellor offering brief therapy at a university and in primary care in Leeds. He uses various models (solution-focused therapy, narrative therapy, cognitive analytic therapy and person-centred). He has worked in primary care for 10 years. Mike Worrall is a qualified, experienced and accredited counsellor, a supervisor and trainer. He is a tutor and trainer at Temenos in Sheffield and the author of a number of articles and papers in the field of counselling and psychotherapy. Foreword When Jean Clark phoned me in the summer of 1998 wearing her hat as a representative of the local branch of Psychotherapists and Counsellors for Social Responsibility, I did not envisage that we were about to embark on a fascinating and at some times somewhat unnerving adventure. The issue at stake was the nature of the challenge facing counsellors and psychotherapists who, either through choice or necessity, were plying their trade in the market-place as freelance practitioners. The conference that grew out of our discussions and took place at the University of East Anglia in the early summer of 1999 constituted in many ways an emergence from the closet of those therapists who can all too often live lonely and isolated lives with professional and financial anxieties seldom far away. This book, with contributions from many of those who were active participants at the conference, takes the exploration much further and brings into broad daylight the concerns that not only impinge upon freelance practitioners and their clients but also serve to illuminate the increasingly influential and yet still precarious position of counselling and psychotherapy in our society and culture. The freelance practitioner must face squarely the professional and ethical questions that arise from offering paid assistance to those in mental and emotional distress. He or she must make personal decisions, for example, about the adequacy of his or her training and supervision and about the level of fee to be charged. What is more—especially for those working as 'affiliates' for Employee Assistance Programmes—there are inevitable dilemmas raised by the provision of short-term counselling for employees who have often been damaged by the very organisations that are footing the bill. The freelance practitioner who wishes to proceed in good faith and in full awareness cannot dodge such issues although the temptation to do so may be enormous in the light of the proliferation of trained therapists entering the field and the paucity of salaried posts. The realisation that one is in competition with colleagues or erstwhile fellow trainees for the privilege of responding to the suffering of others is not conducive to the preservation of an easy conscience or a quiet mind. As Jean Clark aptly comments in her Introduction, the path of the freelance practitioner should not be entered upon by the faint-hearted. It is important, however, that the opportunities and challenges as well as the pitfalls of freelance x work are examined and evaluated so that those who do enter upon this path are informed and equipped for the task. To engage in such work blindly and without effective preparation is a recipe for disaster and can lead to untold misery for therapists and clients alike. It is also likely to provide a field day for the legal profession in our increasingly litigious society. I commend this book to a wide readership. It makes sombre but challenging reading for those who are considering a career in counselling and psychotherapy as well as those who are already in training. It also has much to say to trainers themselves. It will alert them to their responsibilities as they seek to equip trainees for a competitive and tough world where to collaborate with colleagues can seem like professional suicide rather than an ethical imperative. Not least, the book offers much to those who are already seasoned freelance practitioners but who wish to reflect upon their experience and to improve the quality of the service they offer. We live in a culture where the entrepreneurial spirit is admired and encouraged. Counsellors and psychotherapists must learn how to harness this spirit without losing the compassion and the deep respect for the individual that lie at the heart of their profession. We have reached the point where the majority of counsellors and psychotherapists now work either partly or entirely as freelance practitioners. It may well be that their capacity to maintain their integrity and enhance their effectiveness will determine whether in the years ahead counsellors and psychotherapists are seen as compliant servants of a dysfunctional society or respected and credible agents of change. It is not, after all, irrelevant that when Jean Clark first phoned me she did so as a representative of Psychotherapists and Counsellors for Social Responsibility. Brian Thorne Emeritus Professor of Counselling, University of East Anglia, Norwich; Fellow, British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy; Co-founder, Norwich Centre for Personal and Professional Development Acknowledgements This is a multi-authored book. My thanks to the established writers who contributed and also to the group of counsellors who had not written for publication before, but were willing to reflect and write out of their experiences on different aspects of counselling and freelance working and who have brought a freshness and immediacy to the book. I wish to express my gratitude to the many colleagues who have given me their support; those who have given me permission to quote from personal communications, the many who have shared their experiences of working freelance with me, and those who have generously given me editorial advice and assistance, in particular Susan Cooper and Richard House. And to Kate Hawes at Brunner-Routledge for having faith in me. Thanks are due also to Many Rivers Press, Langley, Washington, USA, for their kind permission to quote lines from David Whyte's poem 'No One Told Me', from Fire in the Earth, copyright 1997. xii Introduction Jean Clark Competition and collaboration are words that seldom appear in the counselling literature, yet for those who are unable or unwilling to find secure salaried posts as counsellors or psychotherapists, these words name the everyday experience of working independently. This book explores the tensions that are inherent in freelance work, and how these may be acknowledged and held in creative ways; when they are denied, then we are involved in various kinds of collusion and these too are discussed by some of the contributors. I have deliberately used the word freelance in the title of this book, rather than private or independent practitioner. The word is defined as 'a person who sells his or her services to various employers, not employed by one only' (Oxford English Dictionary); it originally implied one who literally carried their lance, as a mercenary soldier in battle. The majority of counsellors, including myself, work freelance; that is to say, they are not in receipt of a regular salary, and are working independently in different settings. Throughout the book the terms 'counsellor' and 'psychotherapist' are used interchangeably. In order to earn an adequate income, most counsellors will need to develop a portfolio of work—which may include some private clients, work for an agency such as a GP practice or an employee assistance programme, some sessional teaching, training or consultancy; and it might also include care work or other paid activity that will generate some regular income. As one colleague said, 'I have always had four or five jobs.' Some will also choose to undertake voluntary counselling in an agency in order to gain sufficient hours of supervised practice to be able to apply for accreditation, or to widen the range of their experience. The book looks at some of the realities, the costs and challenges of freelance working, and issues that need consideration, perhaps even before applying for a training course, and certainly during training. As the subtitle suggests, to work freelance is to experience the tension between being in competition with colleagues, and yet sometimes working collaboratively with and seeking support from those same colleagues. It will not tell you how to succeed or how to survive, but it does raise many important questions and it is written by practitioners all of whom have had experience of working freelance, so that they know the satisfactions and problems, and the emotional pitfalls. 2 INTRODUCTION It will be relevant for counselling and psychotherapy trainees, and for those exploring the possibility of training with a view to a career change, for the recently qualified, and for the independent practitioner who may be feeling isolated. It also raises issues that trainers may wish to explore further in seminars for students, most of whom are unlikely initially to obtain a salaried post. The impetus for the book came from the energy and feedback generated by a conference initiated by the Norwich branch of Psychotherapists and Counsellors for Social Responsibility (PCSR) and convened by the Centre for Counselling Studies, University of East Anglia, in May 1999. It was advertised as a conference to explore 'Collaboration Competition Collusion: The Challenges, Dynamics and Politics of Freelance Counselling and Psychotherapy', and was attended by 78 people including experienced, recently qualified and trainee counsellors and psychotherapists from different parts of the country. The conference programme acknowledged that 'increasing numbers of people are qualifying as counsellors and psychotherapists, yet in most areas there are few full-time salaried posts. Most practitioners work freelance, with all the challenges and stresses that this involves. Agencies, including universities, continue to meet demands for training courses. It seems timely to explore some of the implications, both personal and professional' (conference publicity leaflet 1999). The conference was offered as a space to reflect upon some of the implications of working freelance, alongside colleagues whom we may see as being more— or less—successful and asked 'Dare we look at the shadow and speak of our fears, envies, loneliness, as well as our satisfactions, strengths and coping strategies? How do individuals hold the tension of collaboration and competition and remain open?' It was also suggested that when these issues are not addressed, unhealthy collusions may occur. The response from participants showed an energy and a willingness to discuss issues that had not been explored so openly before. It seemed timely to consider writing a book that would acknowledge both the stresses and the freedoms and satisfactions of the work, and which might offer some companionship to those who decide to give up the security of a regular salaried post and seek to work freelance. As the different contributors to the book make clear, the challenges are different for each person but they do include starting and maintaining a practice; fluctuations in income; finding support; coping with ill health; keeping up with new approaches and ongoing requirements for personal and professional development; accreditation; working alongside colleagues with different theoretical orientations; facing competition with those we know and respect; dealing with internal anxieties; feelings of envy, threat and inadequacy; balancing the public persona and the private person. Then there are political issues; relationships between freelance therapists and NHS Mental Health services; building trust between statutory services and the freelance sector; who charges what and who pays; voluntary counselling services as practice grounds for trainees and newly trained counsellors seeking INTRODUCTION 3 accreditation; the impact of Employee Assistance Programmes (EAPs); who pays for necessary long-term therapy? Does our mainly freelance status make us an invisible profession? All these are a measure of the complexity faced by those who may have spent some time considering whether to undertake a training course in counselling or psychotherapy, and then gone through a selection procedure, followed by a time of waiting for the chosen course to commence; then a period of between one (full-time) and four (part-time) years in training (see Chapter 1). During this period, professional goalposts are changing, more newly qualified therapists are coming into the 'market-place', and the work opportunities are not what may have been envisaged when the journey began. I have come to see this book as a kind of map. Each chapter describes part of the terrain through which a newly qualified practitioner will travel. Each person's route will be different. Maps are not there to say 'this is the road you will travel', but rather they indicate the territory, showing paths going in different directions or none, where there are obstacles, resting places offering refreshment. It is up to each of us to decide which path to take. But the goal is the same: to find and be found by those in emotional distress, to create a safe space where it is possible to work together over time, to contract together how this will be financed, and to observe certain ethical boundaries. I am very grateful to those who have joined in this enterprise. Some are experienced writers, while for others it is the first time they have contributed to a published book. All have written out of their wide experience as practitioners. The book will not describe how to become a successful practitioner, but it does address some of the many issues that are faced by those working in the field, who are experiencing the inevitable tension between an inherent competition with colleagues and the ways in which colleagues may collaborate to develop new ideas, discuss issues and give and receive support. Although the subtitle of the book is 'competition and collaboration', the contributors were asked also to keep in mind the dimension of collusion that can exist in freelance working. Part I: Some facts and tensions The opening chapter by Gabrielle Syme gives a historical overview of the development of counselling and psychotherapy in the UK, and gives some realistic costs for training, supervision and therapy. She raises the controversial question of when people might be considered to be adequately trained and experienced to be able to work safely with private clients. Chapter 2 explores some of the internal dynamics of freelance work and the emotions evoked and endured by those who by choice or necessity seek to work independently. Jean Clark suggests that it is better not to collude with the denial of the reality of competition, so that we may eventually reach a point of healthy cooperative competition and ethical networking. 4 INTRODUCTION Part II: Setting up as freelance In Chapter 3 Colin Feltham explores, from his own experience, some of the issues that need to be taken into account before attempting to set up as freelance, though he points out that these are not a recipe for 'how to start in private practice'. He includes the need for some business acumen and entrepreneurial skills as well as psychological issues including loneliness, lack of certainty and security and challenge from peers inherent in freelance practice. Ian Horton, in Chapter 4, seeks to clarify issues about regulation, registration and accreditation of counsellors and psychotherapists. He gives an overview of some of the issues and points out that intending practitioners need to keep themselves up to date with current developments. Sue Wheeler in her chapter 'Sorting out supervision' states very clearly her view that 'freelance work is not for the untrained novice'. She suggests that the three words collaboration, competition and collusion all have relevance for the supervisory relationship; therapist and supervisor may collaborate in some settings; they may be in competition with each other for clients; and as she says, 'collusion is possible in any supervisory relationship and warrants close scrutiny'. In Chapter 6 Keith Tudor and Mike Worrall tackle the theme of an 'unspoken relationship'—the financial dynamics in freelance therapy. There can be personal, professional and psychological difficulties about dealing with money —how much to charge, how to negotiate, keeping accounts and the ethics of charging for therapy. Part III: The dynamics of survival To undertake a training course is to embark on a process of change, of gaining new and sometimes disturbing insights and awareness, from which there is no going back. Then comes a further period of uncertainty when the course with its comradeship and support is over. Chapter 7 offers maps of these transitions with their loneliness and freedoms, which are also relevant to the work with clients. A seldom-explored theme is that of the therapist in relation to their family. Tania Barnett, a married counsellor with two children, and herself the daughter of two psychotherapists, explores her own family relationships, as daughter, wife and mother, in Chapter 8. Searching the literature, she has found 'a visible lack of value given to the connection between "family dynamics" and being a freelance therapist', and yet the decision to become a therapist inevitably impacts on family relationships. While personal and professional development have always been seen as part of the training experience and subsequent development as a therapist, it is now a requirement of the various accrediting bodies that Continuing Professional INTRODUCTION 5 Development (CPD) be demonstrated on a regular basis. Chapter 9 offers the practitioner an overview of CPD activities and suggests how they may be used creatively to develop reflective practice and selfnurture. Part IV: Survival in practice This section of the book is written directly out of the personal and professional experience of seven counsellors, each with their different story. It looks at the theme of survival, from the early days post-qualification through to the choices that have been made to work in different contexts, together with reflection upon the demands, stresses and satisfactions they have found. In Chapter 10 four counsellors reflect upon the choices they made in their search for work after qualifying and describe the early years of working freelance. They have taken very different routes. Joe Daggers writes of his experience, together with two colleagues from the training course, in setting up a counselling partnership, with its challenges and struggles. Jacky Moss took a different route, which she describes as a journey 'from there to here'. She continued to work as a volunteer counsellor gaining more experience working with a variety of clients, until through contacts in the local counselling community she began to be offered some paid work. Two years on, she is earning her living as a freelance. Leebert Hughes was a qualified engineer who became interested in counselling through voluntary work. After qualifying as a counsellor, he found it harder than he had anticipated to find paid work. He reflects upon his experience as a black counsellor, who has from time to time faced prejudice. Gerry Virgo writes of her early decision 'not to give up the day job' and for several years after qualifying continued salaried work in a major public institution while working as a volunteer counsellor in an agency. Eventually she took the risk of giving up her full-time post and took a part-time salaried administrative role in a counselling agency. In Chapter 11 Benita Cowen and Nigel White reflect upon their experiences of working in primary care, over a period during which the NHS has gone through many changes. They explore the stresses involved in surgery counselling working alongside a team who have a medical model. It is as if two different cultures meet, and cannot always find a common language. Charlotte Johnson writes about EAPs from her own wide experience. Chapter 12 outlines many issues, including the level of training and experience required by most EAPS, the terms on which the counsellor is contracted to work, and the ways in which areas of responsibility and confidentiality are different from the client/counsellor contract in private practice. In Chapter 13 Gabrielle Syme explores in some detail the implications of working from home and with long-term clients in a psychodynamic context, including questions of privacy, personal safety and the necessity for thorough 6 INTRODUCTION supervision when a psychotherapist is working with the client over a period of years. I want to thank all those who have contributed to the writing of this book. It contains a rich mix of perspectives and I hope it will inform, challenge and encourage those who read it. It may even discourage some people who had thought of counselling as a second career. It is not a path for the faint-hearted! Part I Some facts and tensions There has been an immense growth in the practice of freelance counselling and psychotherapy since the early 1980s and 568 training courses were listed in the BAC Training Directory (2000). For those who are considering the possibility of training for work, which can be viewed as personally satisfying, flexible and free from the demands of bureaucratic institutions, it can be important to be aware of the broad context, and some of the issues that are involved in working freelance—practical and emotional as well as professional. For those who are in the process of training there are likely to be a number of unspoken concerns and anxieties, and it can be healthy if these are acknowledged, explored and discussed while there is still the support of a training group. To work freelance, whether by choice or necessity, is at times lonely, and it can be hard to know how to deal with the confusions and challenges of competition while still finding support from colleagues, and to gain a realistic view of the practical and emotional challenges ahead. 8 Chapter 1 The development and growth of freelance counselling Gabrielle Syme Introduction All the psychological or talking therapies owe their origins to Freud, psychoanalysis and Vienna in the 1880s. In 1886 Freud went into private practice in Vienna as a neurologist and over the next 10 years developed a method of treating hysterical patients, which he called psychoanalysis. Many of his original analysands moved away from Vienna and also had profound disagreements with Freud. These disagreements led to new theories and methods of working, which have become the basis of the different theories of psychotherapy and counselling. These many theories can be fitted under three main headings: psychodynamic, person centred and behavioural. The first two can be clearly linked to Freud and his followers; psychodynamic owes its origins to Freud, Jung and Adler and person centred to Adler and Rank. Coincidentally working in private practice as a psychological therapist also links back to Freud. At the time that he was working medicine was rarely free, so inevitably he and his followers were all private practitioners. In the UK medicine became free at the point of need in 1948, so from then on there was the possibility of some psychological therapists being salaried and all having some choice about whether to seek a salaried job or to work in private practice or voluntarily, or become freelance and mix the three. Psychoanalysis developed very differently in Britain from the USA. In the latter almost all psychoanalysts are medically qualified, whereas in the UK most psychoanalysts, psychotherapists and counsellors are lay. A possible reason for this acceptance of a lay training in the UK is that Ernest Jones, one of Freud's analysands, brought psychoanalysis to Britain in 1913, subsequently founding the British Psychoanalytic Society in 1924. Although medically qualified himself he was very loyal to Freud and did not break away from him. He wrote the first biography of Freud (Jones, 1953). Freud vigorously supported the lay analyst, analysing a number of lay people, his daughter Anna being one. He did not consider a medical education essential for an analyst; what was needed was a 'special training necessary for the practice of analysis' (Freud, 1927), Another reason for the preponderance of lay people in the psychological therapies in 10 SOME FACTS AND TENSIONS Britain may also be that Freud and his daughter Anna escaped to London in 1938. Freud died in 1939 but his daughter, a distinguished and influential lay psychoanalyst in her own right, remained in the UK for the rest of her life. Another difference in the USA is that counselling is a graduate entry profession, with psychology being an essential part of the undergraduate degree. In the UK psychotherapy is a graduate entry profession whereas counselling is not. Nonetheless in a survey of its members conducted in 1997 the British Association for Counselling (BAC) found that 61% were graduates and another 28% had diplomas, a number of which were of degree standard and indeed would be degrees nowadays. Neither counsellors nor psychotherapists need a psychology degree, though psychotherapists must have a degree in a human or social science. A degree in psychology is not common among members of BACP, maybe because counsellors with a psychology degree have the option of joining the British Psychological Society and becoming a Chartered Counselling Psychologist. There is one other significant difference between counselling in North America and the UK. This is that counselling in Great Britain has become focused on emotional and social development whereas in North America it is commonly in a school setting and is mainly directed towards vocational guidance and social action. This prejudice against lay analysts and therapists in the USA may well be behind the development of a separate discipline of counselling and its focus on vocational work and social action. The actual word 'counseling' was first used in 1908 by a radical social activist called Frank Parsons (1854– 1908). He set up a Vocational Bureau in the North End of Boston where there were many immigrants, with a 'counseling center' where 'interviews, testing, information and outreach' were offered (Bond, 2000). This tradition of counselling being very closely linked with social action has continued to this day in the USA. It seems that the word 'counseling' coined by Parsons was taken up by Carl Rogers to describe his work when as a psychologist and therefore 'lay' he was not permitted by the psychiatric profession in the USA to call himself a psychotherapist (Thorne, 1984). Another reason for Rogers choosing the word 'counseling' may have been that his background was an initial training as a Christian minister and pastoral care and counselling were being practised by some ministers. The start of counselling in the UK Counselling first appeared in the UK in the voluntary sector. In 1948 David Mace, the general secretary of the National Marriage Guidance Council (NMGC, nowadays known as Relate), wrote a book entitled Marriage Counselling: The First Full Account of the Remedial Work of the MGC. The NMGC had been set up 10 years earlier to offer some pre-marriage education. From this Mace had become aware that something akin to a Child Guidance Clinic, where doctors, clergy and other professionals were available for THE DEVELOPMENT AND GROWTH OF FREELANCE COUNSELLING 11 consultation, was also necessary for people with marriage problems. In 1946 counsellors started to be selected using interview techniques developed by the War Office Selection Boards. These counsellors were trained to ascertain in a single session the client's main source of difficulty and then make a referral to professionals such as psychiatrists, GPs, ministers of religion or family-planning advisers. In a sense they were first aid workers backed by consultants. Gradually counsellors wanted to be the main source of help and not merely to act as a referral agency. This indeed happened during the 1950s; marriage guidance counselling changed so that well-trained volunteer counsellors worked with their clients regularly over a period of time and maintained a relationship for a number of weeks (Tyndall, 1993). This has become the 'way' counsellors work. At the same time counselling training was being given to some youth workers and clergy and the first university counselling courses were being set up specifically to offer counselling as part of in-service training for teachers. This proliferation of counselling during the 1950s and 1960s started to cause concern because counselling was being offered in some settings without the necessary safeguards and constraints. Under the auspices of the National Council of Social Service a new association was formed in 1970, named the Standing Conference for the Advancement of Counselling (SCAC), membership being drawn from the voluntary sector, such as the Albany Trust, NMGC and the Pregnancy Advisory Service, from a number of groupings of counsellors, such as the Association for Student Counselling (ASC, founded in 1970) and the Association for Pastoral Care and Counselling (APCC, founded in 1972) and from the youth workers (National Association of Young People's Counselling and Advisory Services). Of particular interest is that SCAC did not have any individual members initially despite the fact that there was already a small number of private practitioners and some people were asking for individual membership. In 1977 SCAC was disbanded and the British Association for Counselling (BAC) formed. It had 1400 individual members in the first year and also organisational members from the start. This association exists to the present day, although it was renamed the British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy (BACP) in 2000. It is the biggest association of counsellors in the UK and in terms of membership as a percentage of the population it is the biggest counselling association in the world. Many of the interest groupings based round work setting or client groups, which were instrumental in the founding of BAC, still exist within BACP as divisions, though a number have changed their name. ASC has changed its name to the Association for University and College Counsellors (AUCC), and APCC has changed its name to the Association for Pastoral and Spiritual Care and Counselling (APSCC). The other divisions are Faculty of Healthcare Counsellors and Psychotherapists (FHCP) formerly known as Counselling in Medical Settings (CMS), Counselling in Education (CIE), Association for Counselling at Work (ACW), Race and Cultural Education in Counselling (RACE) and Therapists in Private Practice (TIPP) formerly, Personal, Relationship and Groupwork. 12 SOME FACTS AND TENSIONS The growth of private practice It was probably inevitable that as people became trained by voluntary organisations as counsellors they would start to use a skill learned in one setting in another and thus become freelance. Marriage guidance counsellors wanted to be paid for their skills and so started working privately as well; pastoral counsellors were asked for help by people who were neither their church members nor Christians; some university counsellors eked out a low salary with a small amount of private work. Perhaps all were also doing a small amount of private work partly because of the pressure from friends and acquaintances asking for counselling, which was not freely available, and partly as a form of insurance in case they became redundant. This was particularly necessary as counselling has grown during a period when there have been two economic recessions. In my research conducted partly by letter, partly by scouring the BAC archives and partly by word of mouth, I found the first person to offer counselling in his own free time and using his own premises but charging no fee did so in 1956. The first person to charge a fee did so in 1960. The first real indication of the existence of a number of freelance counsellors is from the first referral directory published by BAC in 1979/80. In this directory there are 127 names registered. The membership of BAC at that time was 1858 (Syme, 1994). It is important to attach a caveat to all the numbers given for freelance counsellors; all they can do is indicate trends. There are a number of reasons for both overestimates and underestimates: 1 Counsellors, psychotherapists and psychoanalysts have registered in the directories. 2 Some people registered their names at least twice because of working in two places. 3 The first BAC directory only included names of BAC members; later ones were more catholic and accepted entries from anyone who would pay the entry fee. 4 There are a number of other directories, such as the Association of Sex and Marital Therapists. 5 Some people registered 'just in case they ever needed to work privately' but they never did so. 6 Until 1990 entrants into the directory did not have to belong to a professional body and thus anyone could register simply on their own assertion that they were a counsellor, psychotherapist or psychoanalyst. 7 Not all people in the private sector choose to pay to have their name in a directory. 8 An increase in numbers in a directory could simply be related to better publicity of the directory. THE DEVELOPMENT AND GROWTH OF FREELANCE COUNSELLING 13 Despite these provisos there is no doubt that the number of freelance counsellors has increased dramatically. By 1990 there were 1270 names in BAC's Counselling and Psychotherapy Resources Directory, a 10-fold increase from the first referral directory in 1979/80, and in the United Kingdom Counselling and Psychotherapy Directory published by BAC in 2000 there are 2755 individual entries, over double the number in 1990. Over this same time span BAC grew in membership from 7218 in 1990/91 (a fourfold increase from 1979/ 80) to approximately 16,300 at the beginning of 2000. In this 10-year span the increase in membership of BAC and the number of entries in the directory have roughly paralleled one another. This large increase in the number of entrants to the BAC published register and therefore presumably in private or freelance counsellors overall is partly a reflection of the number of training courses, but also a result of the current economic climate, which encourages both individualism and entrepreneurship. At the same time there has not been an increase in paid posts as full-time counsellors, but an increase in sessional work leaving many counsellors needing to do some additional private counselling to have an adequate income. Of course this increase in numbers of private practitioners brings with it increased competition for work, particularly in the large conurbations. In most of the large cities, for instance London, Manchester and Leeds, it is increasingly difficult to find sufficient clients to be able to work full time as a private practitioner. This is also true of some smaller cities such as York and Norwich. This leads to more counsellors becoming freelance and doing some private or independent work, some work for Employee Assistance Programmes (EAPs) and possibly some sessional work for a GP Practice. On the other hand there are places where the current BACP directory has very few counsellors listed: examples are Cumbria, Devon, Cornwall and North Yorkshire. This under-provision brings a different set of problems in its wake for counsellors. With a very small number of counsellors it is difficult to find supervisors and therapists without creating dual relationships. There also appears to be an under-provision in Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales. However, this may be because counsellors choose not to put their name in a register that is perceived to be English. In many respects working in private practice is the most difficult setting and this is reflected in the United Kingdom Register of Counsellors (UKRC), where the Independent Counsellors have to be accredited counsellors, either with BACP or the Confederation of Scottish Counsellors Associations (COSCA) or with one or two other organisations whose standards have been recognised as of equivalence by the UKRC. It is for similar reasons that BACP insists that inexperienced trainee counsellors on BACP Accredited Training Courses should not be in private practice except in unusual circumstances (BAC, 1996). I would recommend that this should be the approach taken by all courses. The particular demands of private practice are that, apart from the counselling work, there is a business to be set up and run, which demands organisational and entrepreneurial skills (see Chapters 3 and 13). In addition there is the danger of 14 SOME FACTS AND TENSIONS isolation and loneliness (Syme, 1994), the need to contain clients without any institutional support and often without a secretary or a receptionist, possibly the necessity of earning sufficient money, which could lead to overworking, and if working from home there may also be the management of the practice so that it does not intrude into the private life of other people living in the house (see Chapters 8 and 13). Training There has been a considerable increase in the number of training courses during the 1990s so that there are more counsellors being trained than there are salaried posts. With no regulation the standard varies enormously from course to course. This is a minefield for a student, who will often have no idea what would constitute a 'good' course. A further problem for potential students is that the standard cannot necessarily be deduced from the title of the course. There are certificate courses, diploma courses, undergraduate and Masters degrees in counselling and some may be of a similar standard, though some training organisations offer a graduated training starting with an introductory course followed by a certificate course and then a diploma or advanced diploma (for example, Westminster Pastoral Foundation). Some courses in counselling studies and others in research methods may not have any requirement for students to have undertaken client work in the past, to be a practising counsellor during the course, or to have to undertake supervised client work to complete the course. A further complication is that at one time no differentiation was made between counselling and counselling skills courses. This is not now true: a counselling skills training is recognised as being different from a counselling course. In 1987 BAC endeavoured to clarify the confusion by introducing a recognition scheme, later renamed an accreditation scheme, for courses. This scheme outlines the basic requirements of a satisfactory training. It should have a minimum of 400 hours staff/student contact and is unlikely to last less than one year full time or 2–3 years part time. Nine basic elements are expected of any training course. These are outlined in considerable depth. Briefly they are as follows: 1 Admission procedures that are transparent and directed towards selecting students who will have sufficient maturity to become counsellors and not to use the course as a substitute for personal therapy. 2 A component of the course focused on self-development throughout the course. 3 A minimum of 100 hours of supervised work with 'real' clients. 4 Skills relevant to the theoretical model should be practised with regular opportunities for observation and feedback. 5 Regular supervision of at least one hour to every eight hours client work. THE DEVELOPMENT AND GROWTH OF FREELANCE COUNSELLING 15 6 There should be a core theoretical model underpinning the course and this should be augmented by the introduction of material from the relevant social sciences to put the counselling into its social context. Other theories of counselling should be introduced for comparative purposes. 7 Professional development should include such components as developing an understanding of the work of other key mental health professionals, introducing codes of ethics and practice, and teaching research methods so papers can be read and understood. 8 The assessment should be congruent with the core theoretical model. 9 Course evaluation should take place regularly and should be ongoing throughout the course. This accreditation system has been very demanding and somewhat daunting, though many trainers have been glad of the rigour once their course has been accredited! Perhaps as a result of this rigour relatively few courses have been accredited. In 1989 two courses were recognised, increasing to 24 in 1995, 49 in 1999 and 64 in 2000. This sharp increase may be the product of the competitive market. In the BAC Training Directory (2000), 568 organisations offering courses were registered and this does not include all the courses in the UK. One way for students to assess whether a course is of a good enough standard is to apply to study on a BACP accredited course. Apart from being of a known and agreed standard, the hours of taught theory and skills training meet the requirements for accreditation as an individual counsellor set by BACP. Other requirements for accreditation are 450 hours of counselling practice with at least 1.5 hours supervision per month and 40 hours of personal counselling or an equivalent experience. Many students completing a BACP accredited course can fulfil these requirements within six months of completing their course. BACP does not stipulate a curriculum for accredited courses to follow but relies on the staff to design a course that is congruent with their core model and containing the main elements necessary to train a counsellor. The assessors would be looking at both the course content and its congruence during the assessment for accreditation. Few courses, if any, have a unit on private practice. I believe this is correct because private practice should only be undertaken by experienced practitioners who have been accredited or are eligible for accreditation by a body such as BACP. In general this is likely to be someone who completed a diploma in counselling at least three years earlier. If a diploma course were to have a unit on private practice it would tacitly be encouraging its members to enter private practice straight away. Though it is not appropriate to have a unit on private practice in a diploma course, trainee counsellors should be made aware of the difficulties involved in running a private practice and the inadvisability of a newly trained counsellor working in this setting. I would suggest that counsellors should attend a short course on setting up in private practice as part of a Continuing Professional Development requirement (see 16 SOME FACTS AND TENSIONS Chapter 8). BACP has occasionally run day workshops on this topic, as have a few enterprising individuals. Some training courses also address the implications of working independently. There are three books available that are well-worth reading. These are written by Syme (1994), McMahon (1994) and Thistle (1998). While there is some overlap, these books are complementary because different topics are covered in depth. Costs of training I mentioned earlier that I believe that before counsellors move into private practice they should be an experienced practitioner and be accredited by BACP or an organisation setting similar standards. Nowadays this means having undertaken and graduated from a substantial course, having worked with at least three clients a week and completed a minimum of 150 hours per year for three years with adequate supervision. In addition to being accredited one must have had a minimum of 40 hours of personal therapy or an equivalent experience. All of this costs money with no subsidy available unless a training therapist or supervisor is prepared to offer students lower fees. Many courses, although not all, include the cost of supervision while training, in the course fee. This rarely happens with personal therapy though many courses insist on their students receiving therapy, and thus it is an additional cost during training. After graduation the counsellor has to fund supervision and may wish to continue in therapy, which will have to be self-financed. It can be seen that the training will be expensive (at least £5000 in 2000). The actual costs of courses vary considerably. It is a very competitive field with colleges of further education and of higher education, universities and privately run organisations all competing for a finite number of people. This makes it imperative to read the small print and know what is required to become an accredited or registered counsellor. Without this knowledge students may choose a cheaper course and then find there are many extra hidden costs involved in reaching the level of experience to equip them for private work. This level of expenditure raises issues of equal opportunity of access to training. One of the recent developments is the development of a National Vocational Qualification (NVQ) at level 3 in counselling. The method of assessment is using a portfolio presentation to give evidence of having gained the necessary experience to practise as a counsellor. It is hoped that this will be a considerably cheaper way of training and BACP has developed a route of accreditation for people with an NVQ qualification. This will not remove the costs of personal therapy and supervision but there are counsellors who have a sliding scale of fees or concessionary fees for those on a low income. THE DEVELOPMENT AND GROWTH OF FREELANCE COUNSELLING 17 Availability of work I indicated earlier in this chapter that in some areas of the UK there are more counsellors than work because of the increase in number of people who have been trained as counsellors without an increase in salaried posts. In addition, up to now the natural wastage of counsellors through retirement or death has been low for two reasons: first, because counselling is a relatively young profession and therefore the majority of counsellors trained in the last 25 years are still practising; second, this is exacerbated because there is no retirement age and many experienced counsellors continue to do a small amount of private work long after the statutory retirement age. Younger counsellors should take heart, as no one lives for ever! Over the next 20 years the older counsellors will cease to practise and therefore there will be more work to go round even if there is no increase in the number of people seeking counselling. There is likely to be an increase in people seeking counselling as it has and continues to become more acceptable to seek help. There has been a noticeable trend in the last 20 years of the British being less repressed and more able to express emotions publicly. A particularly powerful example was when Princess Diana was killed: this is not an isolated example, though by far the most public. The result of the increase in people being trained as counsellors, without significant numbers leaving the profession, has been less private work and therefore greater difficulty in earning a living through this alone. This lack of private work has been partly compensated for as a result of increased use of sessional counsellors by GPs and by the formation of many more EAPs subcontracting work to accredited or registered counsellors. This encourages many more counsellors to become freelance in order to earn an adequate income for their needs. It is common for a counsellor to do some private counselling, and supervision if they are sufficiently experienced, along with sessional work for a GP and some contract work for an EAP. I think this trend will continue and it may be a good thing because it decreases the isolation of the private practitioner. However, there is a danger of increasing the overheads disproportionately so that the increased income does not balance out the costs of travelling and the loss of incomegenerating hours while travelling. There was a clear growth in counselling in GPs' practices in the 1990s and it is probable that this will continue. In 1993 about a third of family practices in England and Wales were employing at least one counsellor (Sibbald et al., 1993). This has now grown to over 70%. There is much circumstantial evidence that patients appreciate counselling because they like being listened to. Randomised controlled trials do not indicate that counselling is effective, though the methodology of much of this research is highly questionable (Rowland and Goss, 2000). However, there are an increasing number of naturalistic studies which reveal a satisfactory outcome with either reduced referrals to psychiatric services or a reduced drug bill for a practice. This evidence is becoming 18 SOME FACTS AND TENSIONS increasingly important from the point of view of generating more work for counsellors. A recent publication by the Department of Health (1999) stated that 'at any one time around one in six people of working age have a mental health problem' and for 'every one hundred individuals consult[ing] their GP with a mental health problem, [only] nine will be referred to specialist services'. This means the remainder have to be seen by other mental health professionals, which includes counsellors (see Chapter 11 for working in the NHS). In 1996 a social worker successfully argued that his employer was liable for his nervous breakdown and received compensation of £175,000. Subsequently there have been a number of other cases of workers successfully arguing that their employers' work practices caused their stress and receiving compensation. It has been estimated that in 2000 mental health and stress problems were costing employers in Britain about £5 billion. This has resulted in some companies setting up in-house occupational health departments but more commonly they subcontract this work to EAPs, who in turn subcontract the counselling work. It is likely that this will increase further unless the working practices of British employers change radically (see Chapter 13 for working with EAPs). The future of freelance counselling There are many counsellors who are highly critical of freelance counsellors, believing that all counselling should be free at the point of need (Pilgrim, 2000). If they had their way private practice would cease. I think many counsellors would prefer to be able to offer counselling free at point of delivery and this would be possible if the way the health service was funded was altered (Syme, 1994). Meanwhile the UK is a mixed economy and there will always be people who prefer to pay for their care. While private work may not grow I think it likely that freelance work will continue to expand, with counsellors surviving financially with a 'pick-and-mix' type of practice. It is to be hoped that this is stimulating rather than stressful. This will only be so if counsellors are realistic about what can be achieved in a day when working in a variety of settings, and protect themselves from overwork. References Bond, T. (2000) Standards and Ethics for Counselling in Action. London: Sage. British Association for Counselling (BAC) (1996) Code of Ethics and Practice for Trainers. Rugby: British Association for Counselling. British Association for Counselling (BAC) (2000) The Training in Counselling and Psychotherapy Directory. Rugby: British Association for Counselling. Department of Health (1999) National Service Framework for Mental Health: Modern Standards and Service Models. London: Department of Health. THE DEVELOPMENT AND GROWTH OF FREELANCE COUNSELLING 19 Freud, S. (1927) Postscript to 'The Question of Lay Analysis'. Penguin Freud Library, Vol. 15. Harmondsworth: Penguin. Jones, E. (1953) The Life and Work of Sigmund Freud. Harmondsworth: Penguin. McMahon, G. (1994) Setting up your own Private Practice in Counselling and Psychotherapy. Cambridge: NEC. Pilgrim, D. (2000) Social class. In C.Feltham and I.Horton (eds), Handbook of Counselling and Psychotherapy. London: Sage. Rowland, N. and Goss, S. (2000) Evidence-Based Counselling and Psychological Therapies. London: Routledge. Sibbald, B., Addington-Hall, J., Brennerman, D. and Freeling, P. (1993) Counsellors in English and Welsh general practices: their nature and distribution. British Medical Journal, 306:29–33. Syme, G. (1994) Counselling in Independent Practice. Buckingham: Open University Press. Thistle, R. (1998) Counselling and Psychotherapy in Private Practice. London: Sage. Thorne, B. (1984) Person-centred therapy. In W.Dryden (ed.), Individual Therapy in Britain, London: Harper & Row. Tyndall, N. (1993) Counselling in the Voluntary Sector. Buckingham: Open University Press. 20 Chapter 2 The internal dynamics of freelance Jean Clark The three words, collaboration, competition and collusion, floated into my mind in the early 1990s—and somehow would not go away. They were a shorthand for what appeared to be happening as training courses proliferated, and counselling was increasingly being spoken about in both positive and negative ways by the general public and by the media. How would I and my colleagues react in an increasingly competitive situation? Would we be willing to acknowledge and work realistically with what was happening? By then I had been working freelance for five years, though my history as a counsellor and trainer went back to 1971, when I was appointed 'to undertake some student counselling' at Leicester Polytechnic. At that time there was no one to collaborate with. It was lone pioneering work, setting up the first student counselling service in an institution. I was aware of a few other student counsellors in different parts of the country, and I had no sense of competition. It was the tutors at the polytechnic who seemed to see me as a competitor! I spent 10 years as a salaried student counsellor; then came a marital breakup, and in 1985, aged 59, I moved to another part of the country and began to work freelance as a way of earning my living. It was challenging, but there were not many trained counsellors at that time, I was not aware of competition. My internal dialogue at this time was about practical things. Can I cope with schedule D income tax? How do I find an accountant? How do I keep business accounts? It was not until I was supervising students on a counselling training course in the late 1980s, most of whom lived locally and were coming to the end of their training, that I began to recognise there was a new dimension to my experience of freelance working. I had been using the metaphor 'aquaplaning—it is alright so long as you don't look down'. Now I might lose my balance if I looked round to see who was coming up behind me. There was beginning to be competition for clients and increasingly I found myself hearing about my newly qualified supervisees' efforts to find paid work. I began to talk to them about the fact that we were now in competition with each other for clients, which initially seemed to be a shock to them. I found myself exploring with them the facts of life around working on a freelance basis. It felt then, and still does feel, a healthy thing to do, during what I see as the 22 THE INTERNAL DYNAMICS OF FREELANCE mentoring stage of supervising students who are coming towards the end of their counselling training. I recall my own, well-concealed, feelings of anxiety at that time, as more courses equipped more counsellors to come into the field of competition for clients. I tried not to acknowledge that I might be an object of jealousy because I could be seen as successful. After all I had been a practitioner for a long time. I comforted myself with thinking 'Well, they probably see me as an elder', and then imagined them saying 'When is she going to stop working and make more room for us?' I was now becoming conscious of the unspoken, unacknowledged, sometimes destructive dialogues which occasionally went on inside my head, and the unspoken conversations with peers. One of my (now) very experienced colleagues recently wrote to me about her feelings during the first months after she ended her training: During the first years I lived on the edge of fear as far as earning a living was concerned. I did not know if it was possible and I certainly had no preconceptions about how it could happen. I lived for the moment and drove myself relentlessly, enjoying the challenge. The fear was my spur, as was a newly found competitive energy. These two powerful feelings were, I think, well hidden from most people; though I could acknowledge them to myself easily, I did not believe they fitted in with the expected image of a caring and competent therapist. What was not so comfortable to admit to myself, let alone anyone else, were the deep feelings of anxiety, anger and envy. I found that if I heard of a peer getting work that I could have done, I would be furious, because they didn't need the money to live, and I did; or I felt I could do the work much better than her/him. I was envious of peers who got 'proper' counselling jobs, even though that was not what I wanted. I was sometimes despairing that things would ever work out. (Gilchrist, A., personal communication, 1999) Listening now to recently qualified trainees and supervisees, I hear very similar concerns: • 'Now the course has ended my partner keeps saying "Well, when are you going to start earning some money?" I have done all I can. The counselling room is ready, I have put out publicity, but where are the clients? Will I ever get started?' • 'Yes, it is a vocation, it is what I really want to do, but will I ever get through the hoops and be accredited? Will I be good enough? What are they looking for? It all takes so long and it costs!' • 'I have spent so much money on my training but they don't really tell you how difficult it is to get started.' SOME FACTS AND TENSIONS 23 • 'It seems like the only way I can reach this 450 hours supervised practice and apply for accreditation is to do a stint as a voluntary counsellor somewhere, yet I need to be earning—I have used up all my savings.' Over the last few years, experienced colleagues were facing the implications of more competition for clients, and occasionally sharing their frustrations in supervision or therapy: • 'I either have too much work or not enough. It really is hard to keep a balance and pay my way.' • 'This week it seemed that all my clients sat down and said "I think I have got flu!" If I am ill, it means a week or two off work and no income.' • 'I know I can be competitive and that's alright, but it means I can take on too much and work too hard, and things get out of balance.' There can be periods of feeling insecure and afraid: • 'There was this article in the newspaper about counselling…one unethical counsellor and we all get rubbished, and when I feel tired I can get quite paranoid about it all.' • 'There is more and more in the journals about complaints and litigation. It could happen to me and that's scary!' • 'It can feel like a knife edge; erratic earnings, occasional very disturbed clients, needing to get away from it all sometimes, yet it's what I want to do!' • 'I am competing for clients with colleagues who may be my supervisor or my therapist. We meet in professional groups and workshops, and then we compete for the occasional salaried post! How do I hold all that together?' For the recently qualified therapist, just setting out on their journey, such thoughts as these may feel like paranoia, and therefore not to be spoken about. Fear, a sense of isolation, feelings of rejection, jealousy, envy, anger, pain—are they a lapse into primitive sibling rivalry? Does the sometimes acute anxiety indicate an infantile longing for dependency? I would suggest that these painful emotions are often appropriate to the situation we find ourselves in. They are the shadow side of working as a freelance counsellor or psychotherapist, and I believe it can be healthy to bring them out into the light of day. Then they may be openly discussed with peers and with more experienced colleagues. We might then be able to ask some important questions. How may these conflicting emotions be held in a creative tension? What will happen if we openly acknowledge them, bring them out of the shadows and speak about them, even though they may not fit in with the expected image of a caring and competent therapist? Participants at a conference, when invited to suggest metaphors for the experience of being a freelance practitioner, suggested the following: 24 THE INTERNAL DYNAMICS OF FREELANCE • • • • A ballerina in a circus, riding two horses, one bigger than the other. Journeying through a tangled forest. A sailing boat (and sometimes the wind fails). Serious hill walking (needing at least one companion, or even a group, with maps and resources). • Gardening (things take time to grow, it is cyclical, we need help sometimes, there can be times of drought). All of these metaphors convey a sense of freedom, of journey, of uncertainty and risk. Will I lose my balance, will factors outside my control create difficulty or even danger? Yet implicit in them all is the satisfaction which can come from hard work, struggle and the need for some preplanning. Starting out on the journey of freelance People are attracted to counselling courses for a variety of reasons. They may have had a good experience as a client, and so develop a fantasy of being a wise, serene, powerful person like their therapist. They may be seeking personal growth, or have a strong desire for a career change. They may be seeking a peer group with whom they may find trust, understanding and a shared philosophy of helping. Or they may see counselling as an extension of their work as a nurse, or a manager or a carer. Their training course may have prepared them well for the challenges ahead, or it may have focused upon the skills, values and psychological understandings of being a counsellor, and neglected the more practical matter of work possibilities, realistic potential earnings, and when it might be ethically responsible to consider setting up in private practice. When the course is over, the qualification has been gained, and the support and challenge of the training group has dispersed, what follows can be a time, which is both lonely and stressful. And yet in a strange way perhaps it can be trusted. I have permission to quote from a letter written by a counsellor who qualified two years ago: I finished the diploma course, thought I had sorted myself out and now expected to find paid work as a counsellor.… I had given up a secure career. There was no going back to previous employment because the excitement for me was in counselling.… As for that elusive employment, I am still searching. What does the future hold? I do not know and strangely it is no longer important. This year I have learnt to live with uncertainty and maybe this is my future path. (Dansey, R., personal communication, 2000) I am minded of the film Field of Dreams, where a farmer, walking in his field of corn, hears a voice saying 'Build it and he will come.' And as an act of faith he builds a baseball pitch, and the ghosts of Shoeless Joe and his team mates do SOME FACTS AND TENSIONS 25 come. To set out to work freelance can be just such an act of faith but of course there are no guarantees that the clients will come. Part of the experience of the newly qualified practitioner is that at the beginning of an adventure we do not know what we need to know. The poet David Whyte takes poetry into his work with change in organisations. He writes words that might well have been written for those who are trying to build up a freelance practice: In my experience, the more true we are to our own creative gifts the less there is any outer reassurance or help at the beginning. The more we are on the path, the deeper the silence in the first stage of the process. Following our path is in effect a kind of going off the path, through open country. There is a certain early stage when we are left to camp out in the wilderness, alone, with few supporting voices. Out there in the silence we must build a hearth, gather the twigs and strike the flint for the fire ourselves. (Whyte, 1997:73) Being a counsellor, like being a poet or a creative person in industry, means being willing to tread a lonely road. I feel that it is important to know this from the very start for it requires of us a particular kind of stamina and certain survival skills. This is particularly true for those who do not have the security of earnings from other work, or do not have a partner who is in paid employment. We may visualise the act of setting out to work on a freelance basis in terms of innovation: the creation of a new way of life that is as yet unclear. 'The act of innovation is both cognitive and emotional' (Goleman, 1998: 100). The cognitive phase involves preparation, gathering data and information, looking at possibilities. Then comes the incubation phase where we let the mind play with the material, allowing connections, possibilities, ideas to simmer…until hopefully the time comes when there is an intuitive sense of how to begin. The hard work comes with the following through. We may find support from various sources. Sometimes when a training course has ended, a group of ex-trainees decide to meet on a regular basis, to share their efforts to find work and offer peer support, as well as exploring personal and professional development issues. Such a group might also be open enough to be able to face the experience of competition when one member manages to secure regular work! Some people seek out an experienced practitioner who may be willing to act formally or informally as a mentor for a period. Mentoring: a green 'L' plate' The words 'mentor' and 'mentoring' have recently emerged in the counselling vocabulary. Here I am using the concept in relation to the immediate postqualifying period, in the sense of an experienced driver accompanying a driver 26 THE INTERNAL DYNAMICS OF FREELANCE who has just passed their test, and wants for a little while to use a green 'L' plate. The role of mentor also now appears as a formal requirement in the BACP reaccreditation procedure (see Chapter 9). Kim Pearl, who works both as a supervisor and a therapist with students during the final stages of their training, through qualifying and beyond, remembers her own post-qualification experience of disappointment and abandonment, and decided to undertake a small piece of research on this theme. She found that some of the responses seemed to mirror her experience: I wasn't prepared for the lost empty loneliness…that I experienced. I believed I would feel amazing about having accomplished so much, but that got lost somewhere. I felt a big loss and isolation following qualification—I would have welcomed a support network of other peers for learning and, maybe, further development of self. I still do not see myself as qualified. My training provided a grounding and a focus for me; the rest of the training is up to me. I was quite frightened when I first left the course; since then I have jointly set up a person-centred counsellors' support group with two other ex-course members. I felt incredibly alone at the end of the course and after numerous attempts to get the group together—felt as though I was out there totally alone thinking, I'm qualified, what the hell do I do? She writes, 'Talking to recently qualified counsellors, many identified with the idea that it felt as if, having conquered this huge mountain of learning, they were suddenly dangling over the edge of a cliff and beneath them lurked dragons of fear and chasms of loneliness' (Pearl, K., unpublished paper, 2000). It appears that for some counsellors there may be a need for some form of support during the post-qualifying period, which might be different from supervision or personal therapy and that this might be termed mentoring. A colleague, who was a teacher before her counselling training, clarified and named the role I have played in her journey. Our infrequent yet significant contact was happening during that crucial period following the end of her course, which has been described as moving from a position of unconscious incompetence to unconscious competence. She writes: When I decided you were going to be my mentor I don't know where this thought came from. Is it a term used in counselling? It was in education but usually you were allocated a mentor rather than choosing one. The Oxford Dictionary definition is 'an experienced and trusted advisor'. It has helped me to (be able to) write to you to clarify what is going on in my life. If you remember, you were the person I decided to contact when I was lost at the end of my initial training. Perhaps I am greedy needing a SOME FACTS AND TENSIONS 27 counsellor to explore my personal development and hold me in moments of crisis, a supervisor to clarify what is really going on in the counselling process and a mentor who gives me the opportunity of exploring future directions, to share apprehension and excitement. (Dansey, R., personal letter) Clearly many people are relieved to reach the end of training, are clear about how they are going to move ahead and would not wish to have a mentor. Certainly I do not think it should be a formal requirement for the newly qualified. But for those who do feel lost and deskilled, it could be that to be able to talk with an experienced colleague of their choice from time to time would give support during a vulnerable period. Johns (1996:49) quotes Bridges (1933), who identified three phases of transition. There is an ending, followed by a period of confusion and distress, leading to a new beginning. Johns suggests that this process inevitably means 'a loss of something, letting go of an aspect of life or self that matters, in order to move on to something else… So often courses, even those where students have a great deal of control and self-direction, have the effect of deskilling people, especially where a degree of unlearning and of abandoning former perspectives on oneself are necessary' (p. 50). It seems paradoxical that students may attain qualified status just at the moment when they have most fully unlearned old ways, and are in that stage of confusion before reaching a new beginning. Having decided to find a mentor, who would they be and what might they offer? They would be a senior, experienced, probably freelance colleague, who would be willing to share ideas from their experience on a range of practical and emotional issues. It might be a paid or unpaid arrangement. The mentor would be offering encouragement and colleague support through the initial postqualification period; a companion during the transition from ex-trainee to new professional. How might this be negotiated? Does it just happen? It may take courage to ask a senior colleague to be available from time to time in this way. Are qualified and experienced practitioners willing to do this, paid or unpaid? They will be supporting their potential competitors. Are they prepared to share their hard-won experience and wisdom? Another possible model might be for a group of ex-trainees to come together to form a mentoring group for an agreed period, say six months, with an experienced practitioner who would be able to facilitate their emotional and professional journey at this stage. Its purpose would be negotiated, and the work might include discussion of practical and professional issues as well as offering peer support. There is a wider recognition of the place of mentoring in society at this time, in education, nursing and in schemes where young people are helped to get back into employment and need support from a person further along the road. Perhaps it is a helpful concept to bear in mind in the sphere of counselling and psychotherapy, but not as a requirement. 28 THE INTERNAL DYNAMICS OF FREELANCE Living with the dynamics of freelance How we may meet the challenges of freelance working will depend upon a number of factors: our organisational ability, the emotional skills and stamina we bring to the task, the capacity to make connections, to network, to be patient —and perhaps an element of luck. Among counsellors and psychotherapists there will be different personality traits. There are those who by nature appear to be organisers or managers or teachers. There are those who are introverts and perhaps loners, and extroverts who may thrive on competition. We may be the oldest or youngest members of our family of origin with all that may mean, or like myself, an only child who was not used to collaborating or competing with siblings. We will have developed our own unique coping strategies for dealing with anxieties, which are likely to have originated in childhood. All these factors may inhibit or enhance our capacity to innovate, to 'build a hearth' and to discover ways of inviting potential clients to come. I have a feeling that those who live most satisfactorily in the world of freelance are those who have worked through early insecurities, jealousies and resentments possibly in their own therapy, and come to the work with awareness of the inevitable stresses, and therefore with positive energies, not with unconscious unmet emotional needs. It helps to be well rooted. Brady et al. draw attention to the physical, social and emotional isolation, which may be one of the tensions most keenly felt by counsellors: Few anticipate the physical isolation that stems from conducting psychotherapy in the same small room, hour after hour… Whereas most other professions have a fair degree of social give and take in their work settings, psychotherapy affords limited interaction among peers. While there is much interpersonal contact with clients, it cannot be compared to the mutuality and sharing that can occur between colleagues. (Brady et al., 1995:10–11) As well as an internal dialogue, there are complex dynamics which can exist between ourselves and our colleagues as we compete for available work. We may make comparisons and feel jealous or insecure or superior. 'Why did they ask her to become a co-trainer?' 'My supervisee has just talked about their new client, and it was someone who ended with me about two months ago.' That can be hard to take! When we are envious of a colleague's 'success', we may get into a cycle of resentment and self-doubt, or we may gossip about them as a way of boosting our own morale. We may hold misconceptions and prejudices about counsellors and psychotherapists who work from different orientations to our own or whose training appears more or less adequate than our own. Dare we discuss these issues or do we stay within our own theoretical enclave? How do we deal with SOME FACTS AND TENSIONS 29 the fact that counselling can in some quarters be seen as inferior to psychotherapy? This can be reflected in the level of fees which clients may expect to pay, and yet experienced counsellors will be doing very similar work. How the various professional bodies distinguish between counselling and psychotherapy is a matter for ongoing debate, while it remains to be seen whether this will be clarified or confused by the decision to rename BAC as the British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy (BACP) (Annual General Meeting, September 2000). These are all areas where we may experience anxiety and discomfort, and I believe that the issues can only be worked through if we begin to name them. Then we are able to explore the necessary tension of freelance working, between competition and collaboration. One definition of competition is 'a friendly contest in which people try to do better than their rivals' and 'the action of endeavouring to gain what another endeavours to gain at the same time'. To collaborate is 'to work in conjunction with others, to cooperate' (Oxford English Dictionary). How do counsellors working as freelance balance these two modes of being? It is seldom, if ever, discussed in the counselling literature. We collaborate, because when we work alone we need professional support, and often emotional support too. For BACP-registered or accredited counsellors, supervision is a requirement, and so we are likely to be supervised by a colleague, and in due course some counsellors go on to supervise other colleagues. This is inevitable in those parts of the country where there are few counsellors. Is there sometimes a kind of collusion in this situation, as we try to pretend that we do not feel jealous about each other's work and income, while perhaps concealing our anxieties about our own practice? I have found it strangely difficult to find anything in the counselling literature about the theme of competition and collaboration. It was in a collection of women's writing, Competition—A Feminist Taboo? (Miner and Longine (eds), 1987) that I eventually found some helpful and relevant material. Writing about her experience as a freelance proof-reader in the Bay Area of California and comparing it with a previous salaried post, Debra Matsumoto writes, 'I have to hustle to obtain assignments and must prove myself anew with each one. The competition is continual, and the competitiveness within the competition can be destructive' (Matsumoto, 1987: 90). Plain speaking, and yet she has experienced solidarity and networking among her freelance colleagues. Despite acknowledging the existence of petty feelings towards competitors, she suggests that 'the nature of the business strongly requires ethical networking and cooperative competition in order for a freelancer to function and continue to work successfully' (my emphasis). There seem to be strong parallels here with the experience of working as a freelance counsellor in Britain. Matsumoto is not afraid to acknowledge aspects of her own competitiveness. She notes that she is discriminating in her networking, and that she is more guarded in passing on information about companies she particularly enjoys working with: 'I feel possessive of certain companies'; and her initial response to a freelancer who is 30 THE INTERNAL DYNAMICS OF FREELANCE not a friend and is seeking information about a particular company is 'to reveal as little as possible' (p. 90). All this feels familiar; dare we be as open about our own competitive behaviours? I feel that the implications of her phrase 'ethical networking and cooperative competition' could provide the material for at least one valuable seminar on any counselling training course, if we are to be open to the shadow side of freelance counselling and psychotherapy. I have used the word 'collusion' earlier. It is a more sinister word—the meaning implies conspiracy, intrigue, machination, and yet it feels appropriate to some of the issues around freelance working. I wonder if part of the illusion we engage in is that we are all nice people who support each other. Yet this is not the reality. There is a secrecy around fees and earnings and a general reluctance to admit to financial worries. We may complain about the apparently ever-growing number of training courses, and yet many of us collude in the system and are glad to be invited to teach on those same courses, and to be therapist or supervisor to trainees. How do we react to the situations in which low-cost counselling can be offered to clients by agencies, who depend on trained counsellors who are willing to work as volunteers? For some recently qualified counsellors, it seems the only way they may gain the requisite number of hours of supervised practice to be able to apply for accreditation. For others, a period of voluntary work offers opportunities for working on a long-term basis with clients presenting a wide range of issues, thus widening the base of their professional experience. One may say that this benefits both counsellor and client, but it can also be seen as a political matter, for it offers a low-cost way of ensuring that at least some help is available for clients whose needs cannot be adequately met by the NHS. Trained counsellors working as volunteers in agencies may well be holding conflicting feelings; an altruistic desire to give to those who might not otherwise receive the help they need; gratitude for the opportunity to gain wide experience and to receive in return the support of a peer group and free group supervision; the opportunity to gain specialised experience in a specialist agency, e.g. for drug and alcohol misuse, rape crisis or bereavement—and yet anger at not receiving financial recompense for their counselling, when they have already spent so much money, time and effort preparing to do this work. For some there is the frustration of finding that they must still serve an 'apprenticeship' as volunteer counsellors, in order to gain the necessary hours of practice before they can become accredited and begin to establish themselves. However, it can be argued that this period of unpaid counselling should be seen as part of the initial training process, and in fact should be budgeted for from the beginning. Working in an agency can be viewed as a transition between the training course and readiness to work independently. In fact work with Employee Assistance Programmes, with the NHS, and most salaried posts increasingly require accreditation and two years' work experience. For the counsellor trying to get started, this can seem like a 'catch 22' situation. SOME FACTS AND TENSIONS 31 There can appear to be a collusive situation, between overstretched mental health staff and general practitioners, who refer patients to 'low-cost counselling centres' and the reality that those same counselling centres depend for their survival upon trained volunteers, and even then, find it increasingly difficult to obtain adequate funding from statutory or voluntary sources to enable them to remain solvent. Areas of insecurity How do established counsellors and psychotherapists feel about the everincreasing number of counsellors who are emerging from training courses and who threaten their livelihood? And how do newly qualified counsellors handle their jealousy of those who appear to have more than enough work? How far do trainers take notice of these dynamics? And above all, what do we do with frustrations about our often unrecognised role in sustaining the mental health of many people? There are issues around power. As in every profession, there is a kind of hierarchy. Those who have worked in the field for a long time; those who devise and teach training courses (and sometimes change the goalposts!); those who write books, who sit on committees, give public lectures; those who have higher qualifications than we do. We may ask ourselves 'Where am I in the pecking order when all I do is solid, responsible work with clients?' or perhaps 'Am I afraid to put myself forward?' I know from many counsellors who are just starting out what a huge step it can be even to have business cards printed with name, address and qualifications. Counselling is such a private activity, yet whether we like it or not we are increasingly in the public arena. There are other disquieting areas. How honest am I willing to be about uncomfortable or embarrassing professional issues when I meet with colleagues in supervision and as co-learners in workshops and training groups? Where do I place my fears and angers about financial insecurities? Clearly these must not be shown to the client, and I may not wish to show them to colleagues either. Am I willing to acknowledge my areas of vulnerability and ask for help? And perhaps the most difficult area of all, what do I do when I hear about seemingly unethical practices by a colleague? In their research paper, 'The supervisory relationship', Webb and Wheeler (1998) quote Salzberger et al. (1983), who suggested that 'sibling rivalry between peers in a learning situation may make it more difficult to admit to one's failings when approval is being competed for'. Qualified counsellors were more likely to discuss sensitive issues when their supervisor was not a senior work colleague, and trust was likely to be greatest when they were able to choose their own supervisor. It was also found that supervisees were less likely to disclose in a group than in individual supervision. For both trainees and experienced counsellors, supervision is seen as a crucial learning experience. When we add the dimension of competition for clients to the possible sibling 32 THE INTERNAL DYNAMICS OF FREELANCE rivalry in the supervisory relationship, we can see areas where collusion may exist (see Chapter 5). David Whyte (1997:25) suggests that 'the price of our vitality is the sum of all our fears' and that as our illusions of immunity and safety are shattered, we can discover that 'we do have a place in the world, but that it is constantly shapeshifting, like the weather and the seasons, into something at once new and beautiful, tantalising and terrible'. These words, for me, describe the risks inherent in our work as therapists. For as well as developing our professional competence, the journey is deeply personal, and the challenges offered by both our clients and society can indeed touch and shake our illusion of safety. Poets sometimes use powerful, accurate language which meets me as an expression of profound empathy and helps me to live with my vulnerability and insecurity as a counsellor with vitality and trust. Challenge and change We, as well as our clients, mirror the insecurities of the times. Political and social structures shape-shift. Violence, wars and the threat of irreversible climate change touch us all. I believe that if I am to be of real help, I must acknowledge these global fears and uncertainties as well as my personal anxieties, and try to hold them in some frame of balance. Particularly for those of us who live and work alone, this can be difficult sometimes. Yet maybe I can use it all as a resource for the journey alongside those who have lost their own spark of hope. And perhaps I can decide to become part of a peer group, such as Psychotherapists and Counsellors for Social Responsibility, where we can agree to discuss the social and political implications of our work. The challenges are many. How may we create ways in which, as individual freelance practitioners, we can be ethically accountable, give and receive personal and professional support, appreciate our ideological differences, be part of the 'political world' and have a voice in it? Can we develop a positive relationship with the statutory mental health services? How can we maintain a space of creativity in the sphere of the personal, the professional, the political? How can we care for ourselves? In a world of constant, sometimes turbulent change, we and our clients are involved at many levels, as also are our professional bodies and training institutions. While I would expect that our personal philosophy as therapists would be one of growth, development and self-renewal, involving body, mind, emotions and spirit, it is equally important that institutions concerned with counselling and psychotherapy are willing to look at their processes of change in similar terms as they seek to ally themselves with other caring professions. We live in a measurement-oriented world where outcomes and throughputs and cost-effectiveness are inevitably becoming part of our experience and our thinking. As organisations like BACP grow in complexity, inevitably they take procedures and concepts from business. But we must not neglect the shadow. SOME FACTS AND TENSIONS 33 David Whyte suggests that 'The corporation needs the poet's insight and powers of attention in order to weave the inner world of soul and creativity with the outer world of form and matter' (Whyte, 1997:8). Edwards and Sen (1999) explore the inseparable link between personal or inner change and social or outer change. They remind us that all social systems —and counselling is a social system—rest on three bases, rather like a threelegged stool, and each base needs to be understood and taken into account (and hopefully held in balance) when we are creating processes of change. The first base is the accepted set of principles which form a basis of ethics and values (our codes of practice and ethics); the second is the institutional base which undergirds the system, the professional bodies like AHPP, BACP, BPS, UKCP, who carry out various tasks and procedures for a growing membership; and the third base, the third leg of the stool, is about the individual, 'the subjective states which constitute our inner being—our personal feelings and intuitions in the deepest sense' (Edwards and Sen, 1999:2). The first two bases describe how we understand and rationalise the workings of the social order, while the third describes how we understand ourselves. The interaction of these three will determine the different ways in which power is exercised. In the social system, which is counselling, too great an emphasis on counsellors' personal freedoms may create unsafety for our clients; too great an emphasis on regulation and codes may threaten the creative environment in which counsellors and psychotherapists seek to work. Too much power in the hands of institutions, and they may lose touch with what the day-to-day life and work of freelance counsellors may bring, in terms both of stress and of learning. In times of social change we need to be aware of the relationship between our value systems, institutional processes and subjective states. To integrate these is an exercise in rebalancing, not the wholesale replacement of one set of procedures by another. Edwards and Sen suggest that to create social change requires 'compassion, and tenderness of heart and toughness of mind, courage and flexibility'—all of which are qualities we may need in our work as therapists. And their paper ends with these words: 'the willingness to confront the shadow of the Self is the secret of all sustainable progress' (Edwards and Sen, 1999:13). For many counsellors and psychotherapists, The therapeutic relationship is the agony and the ecstasy of our work' and within it 'there are fleeting moments of realisation that we have genuinely assisted a fellow human being' (Brady et al., 1995:15–16). These are the times when the insecurities of working freelance are set aside for a while, but they may still be lurking in the shadows. Gilchrist writes: The fear is real, as although I did well last year and this year seems OK, how do I know next year will be the same? The truth is, I don't. None of us in private practice do, whether we are just beginning or have been 34 THE INTERNAL DYNAMICS OF FREELANCE working for ten years. At some level I enjoy the uncertainty and it stimulates me, suits me. (Gilchrist, A., personal communication, 1999) I have suggested that if we can acknowledge and express the competition, collaboration and collusion, which we experience in working freelance, we may begin to face 'the shadow of the self' and release energies which are held there. What can help us to hold the paradox in a healthy and creative way? I have some suggestions: • To develop and sustain a sound ethical base for our practice. • To be aware of our own needs and ensure these are met, so that we do not fall into neediness and lose a sense of balance. • To name the tensions held within collaboration and competition, and to speak about them with our peers, for to name the paradox is to bring energy out of the shadows. • To be aware of the dynamics of social change and to be able to live in and with its processes. • To find our 'political' voice so that the imbalances and dilemmas of freelance may be spoken about, heard and respected. • To see with a poet's eye and find metaphors which express our unique personal experience of working freelance. For several years my metaphor was aquaplaning, keeping my balance as I moved, sometimes quite fast over deep water. Now I feel more like a sturdy wooden fishing boat, which has voyaged both in rough seas and calm waters and is good for a while yet! Perhaps it is only in metaphor that some of us can find that place where we may 'weave the inner world of soul and creativity with the outer world of form and matter' as we face the challenges and freedoms of working as a freelance. References Brady, J.L., Healy, F.C., Norcross, J.C. and Guy, J.D. (1995) Stress in counsellors: an integrative research review. In W.Dryden (ed.), The Stresses of Counselling in Action. London: Sage. Edwards, M. and Sen, G. (1999) NGOs, social change and the transformation of human relationships: a 21st century civic agenda. Paper for the 3rd International NGO Conference on 'NGOs in a Global Future'. University of Birmingham, UK, 10–13 January 1999. Goleman, D. (1998) Working with Emotional Intelligence. London: Bloomsbury. Johns, H. (1996) Personal Development in Counsellor Training. London: Cassell. Matsumoto, D.A. (1987) One young woman in publishing. In V.Miner and H. Longino (eds), Competition—A Feminist Taboo? New York: Feminist Press. Miner, V. and Longine, H. (eds) (1987) Competition—A Feminist Taboo? New York: Feminist Press. SOME FACTS AND TENSIONS 35 Webb, A. and Wheeler, S. (1998) The supervisory relationship. British Journal of Guidance and Counselling, 26(4):516–517. Whyte, D. (1997) The Heart Aroused—Poetry and the Preservation of the Soul at Work. London: The Industrial Society. 36 Part II Setting up as freelance This section explores the practicalities of beginning to work freelance in ways which are ethically sound. There are impo