ABSTRACT
A wind of change is sweeping through the health service and its repercussions are being felt at the grass-roots level in primary care. While fund-holding practices have broken new ground by providing on-site counselling services for their patients, this might be financially motivated: counselling is cheaper than psychiatry. The British Association of Counselling is the professional umbrella association for most counsellors. Relationships with other professional groups have been a running theme of the British Medical Association’s ethical guidance. The contemporary emphasis on privacy, the principle of confidentiality was germane to the ethics of medical practice. It is also an overriding professional principle in psychotherapy and counselling. Patients presenting with psychological problems in a primary care setting can be attended to quickly and cheaply. Counsellors have a psychodynamic perspective of their patients, and, in order to work effectively as team members, they also need to bear in mind that groups and teams have dynamics operating within and between them.
