ABSTRACT
This chapter describes the context of university counselling and outlines the needs of students as counselling clients. It presents a rationale for the inclusion of experiential dynamic therapy-informed work among the range of therapeutic responses offered by a university counselling service. A university counselling service often employs a range of therapists representing cognitive behavioural, psychodynamic, humanistic, cognitive analytic and other modalities, as well as a mental health advisor and/or consultant psychiatrist. In relation to the therapeutic work, in comparison with traditional psychodynamic therapy, features of the university context outlined shape therapeutic relationships in student counselling in such a way that the work tends to be more short-term, focal, active, and less transference-based. Some of the ways in which experiential dynamic therapy handles the problems outlined are attractive for working with students. The softer short-term psychodynamic psychotherapy approaches to anxiety-regulation and defence-validation, and the “graded format” are particularly appropriate.
