Dynamics of Power in Counselling and Psychotherapy

Dr Gillian Proctor is an independent clinical psychologist and person-centred psychotherapist, offering individual therapy and supervision. She is a lecturer in counselling at the University of Leeds and a research supervisor. She has a particular interest in ethics, politics and power and the importance for counselling of the insights from sociology and philosophy to broaden and deepen our understandings of relationships and ethics. Her latest book is 'Values and Ethics in Counselling and Psychotherapy' (2013), published by Sage.

• Introduction; Why does power in therapy matter to me?; Isn't therapy always dangerous or abusive?; What is power? Structural theories; How does power work? Post-structural theories; Cognitive Behaviour Therapy: the obscuring of power in the name of science; Person-Centred Therapy: equality in the therapy relationship?; The Psychodynamic Approach: isn't the power all in the transference?; Conclusions: So what can we do about power?

'Proctor dares to take us into an honest, challenging and critically important debate around power and responsibility, helping us to think clearly about these aspects in our work, while equally pushing us to reflect on difficult areas, both as individual therapists and for the institution of therapy itself.' Dr Andrew Reeves, University of Chester