ABSTRACT
This chapter presents a wide-ranging introduction to the context within which general practice (GP) counselling typically occurs, and to the associated stresses that obtain in that setting. It describes the general context within which GP counselling takes place and its impact upon the GP counsellor. There are a number of ways in which the therapeutic frame in the GP setting is often less than secure. Thus, of the eleven components of the secure frame listed by Smith, at least five are compromised at various times and to varying degrees in the GP setting — namely, total privacy, total confidentiality, consistency of the setting, the question of a fee, and the client’s responsibility for termination of the counselling. Freud’s depiction of psychoanalysis as ‘the impossible profession’ is arguably more widely ascribable to therapy in general. The chapter concludes with some challenges to conventional thinking about the GP counselling frame and the GP counselling experience more generally.
