ABSTRACT
Many counselling and psychotherapy trainings view the role of the counsellor/ psychotherapist in the context of one client and one counsellor within a closed unit. Counselling in organisations requires that the counsellor sees the client in terms of a much bigger system. It is not just about the organisation sending a stressed employee over to the counsellor and washing their hands of any responsibility until the client is well and can return. There are steps beyond that simplistic scenario: allowing the client to return to work without any other changes having taken place is most likely to result in the client soon also returning to the same state they were in when they needed help. This is not good for the client. It is also a situation that will make the employer vulnerable to litigation, which is obviously not good for the company.
