This book is a selection of papers written over 25 years of practising psychoanalytic psychotherapy, of training and supervising psychotherapists, psychodynamic counsellors and supervisors. It reflects a preoccupation with the growth and diversification of counselling and psychotherapy, with the imperatives of training, supervision and regulation.

Introduction -- Models and Methods -- Beginnings, endings, and outcome: a comparison of methods and goals -- From free association to the dynamic focus: towards a model of recurrent psychotherapy -- In praise of once-weekly work: making a virtue of necessity, or treatment of choice? -- Dilemmas in brief therapy: referral-on, topping up, extended contracts -- Suitability and context for brief therapy -- Bereavement counselling -- The selection of candidates for training in psychotherapy and counselling -- Clinical and Other Matters -- The stifled cry, or Truby King, the forgotten prophet -- Some thoughts on sibling rivalry and competitiveness -- The absent father and his return: echoes of war -- Fatherhood today: variations on a theme -- Abuse and recovery -- Defiant resistance in the service of the impoverished self -- The burden of being German -- The fear of death