ABSTRACT
In this Chapter I draw on my experience as a psychotherapist and as a consultant to staff working with the mentally ill in the community, with particular reference to my work as supervisor to a MIND counselling project operating in an inner city area. This project was created to provide a service to people with histories of mental illness who are often denied counselling by other services. Such a counselling service can be seen as a brave initiative or as a naive and foolhardy exercise, depending on one’s point of view: a brave initiative because it is not easy to counsel these clients; a naive and foolhardy exercise because there are some sound reasons for believing that, while counselling might be what these clients want, it may not be what they need or are able to use. It may even be bad for them.
