ABSTRACT
This chapter explains what a principles-based approach is, why a principles-based approach is important and what the advantages of a principles-based approach are. A principles-based approach is more interested in why counsellors and psychotherapists do what they do rather than what they do in any given session with any particular client. The mental health difficulties that people experience are costly to both the individual and society. The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that mental health disorders make up 3 of the 10 leading causes of disease burden in low- and middle-income countries, and 4 of the leading 10 in high-income countries. The Improving Access to Psychological Therapies (IAPT) initiative was prompted largely by a report in 2006 by the London School of Economics in which it was stated that mental illness had usurped unemployment as Britain"s largest social problem.
