ABSTRACT
This chapter’s title may well seem obscure, but, when duly interpreted, it is meant to sum up the series of convictions out of which the chapter is written: that the emerging profession of counselling and psychotherapy is undergoing rapid and profound developments of both substantive and organisational orders; that even the organisational changes will affect each one of us, to the extent, at the worst, of depriving us of the right to exercise our profession legally; that we can no longer afford to be ostriches; that we therefore need to inform ourselves better of these developments; that the relevant information is not readily available; that the most important elements can nevertheless be gleaned-hence the first part of the chapter’s subtitle-from two of our main professional journals, Counselling and the British Journal of Psychotherapy; but that even after such a diligent search the shape of the future can still at this stage be only guestimated, by a process rather dismayingly but fascinatingly like that of interpreting tealeaves-hence the second term of the subtitle; that we have no option but to hazard such a guestimate, but that any such guestimate will be reliable in proportion to its being informed.
