ABSTRACT
In part, the reason for this diversity lies in Sutherland’s (1980) notion of ‘human concern’. Just as in the 1940s people identified needs in the community that were
not being addressed and set about finding ways to serve them, so today the same processes are at work. Some of those initiatives take the form of extensions of existing counselling services or a retargeting of experienced practitioners’ work. In those cases there can be the expectation that ethical and effective services will be provided through the application of best practice. Other community ventures may be set up without connections into the world of counselling; their patterns of caring, helping and listening evolving in efforts to match services to needs and, in the process, re-enacting many of the processes by which counselling itself has developed. Some such ventures are quick to import counselling expertise, while others find themselves pressured to formalise and find the means to regulate the psychotherapeutic components of their services when they turn to sources of public funding for support.
