ABSTRACT
Counselling and psychotherapy are types of trade in which the principal activity is talking, with the aim of creating a professional relationship and to use it to relieve distress or to enable personal development. Anyone may call themselves a counsellor or psychotherapist in any European country, except for the Netherlands and Finland where the title of psychotherapist is restricted. More countries restrict the title of psychologist. Psychologists have a common background training, but undertake many different kinds of work. Psychotherapists and counsellors, by contrast, are so named because they carry out a particular kind of work, and not because of having had a particular kind of training. Psychotherapy or counselling may therefore be undertaken by psychologists, medical practitioners, priests, teachers, and others.
