ABSTRACT
This chapter shows that there is continuity between the way friendship has been described in historical sources and how the therapy relationship is understood in contemporary society. The author's survey begins with an examination of some guidance written for parish priests in the early fifteenth century because, almost incidentally, it reveals how a priest’s pastoral role was similar to that of a contemporary therapist. Like a modern professional who would not want a client to be obtaining therapy elsewhere at the same time, the priest’s role was expected to be exclusive. Turning now to friendship and its relationship to counselling and support, there are many texts from antiquity that describe its nature. Michel de Montaigne regards friendship as a relationship of constancy, trust, and mutual obligation, in which there is no pay-off in terms of pleasure, profit, public or private interest. Anthony Grayling makes the point that romantic love is something else again, and few therapists would disagree with that.
