ABSTRACT
This chapter addresses the reality that a significant number of clients, who come into consultation with a first request for short-term counselling, discover that they need more long-term work. In long-term counselling, "making a space to talk it through" can then become a resource in itself, a space in which the various facets of the personality of the client can emerge, a space that "supports and promotes own movement towards authenticity". Returning to J. McLeod and J. McLeod's "making a space to talk it through"; in long-term counselling it is also the counsellor's task to make a space to talk about what is happening within the counselling relationship. Traditionally transactional analysis contracts for social control and interpersonal changes were seen as being the core of the counselling work, whereas contracts for structural and script changes were the ground of psychotherapy. Focusing on resources is another core competency in counselling as identified by European Association for Transactional Analysis.
