ABSTRACT
This chapter looks at some of the ways in which the consultation has been studied and analysed in order to make consulting skills easier for trainees to acquire. It reviews some current ideas about what consultation skills are. When we speak about 'models' of some complex experience, we are in the realm of metaphor, of analogy, of maps and representations, of 'pars pro toto' – the part standing for the whole. Maps allow us to cut down our exploring time and learn from the experience of other people. They are short-cuts to security. Cartesian dualism holds that the body is nothing more than a mechanism, obeying physical laws, while the mind is of altogether different stuff, God-given and not susceptible to physical explanation. Having models of things is a normal feature of children's play. Consulting isn't child's play, but we can learn as if it was.
