ABSTRACT
This chapter reviews some considerations that are pertinent to the practice of personal responsibility counselling and therapy. The practice of personal responsibility counselling and therapy is primarily focused on the needs of ordinary people rather than on those of the moderately to severely disturbed minority. Havighurst defines a developmental task as ‘a task which arises at or about a certain period in the life of the individual, successful achievement of which leads to his happiness and to success with later tasks, while failure leads to unhappiness in the individual, disapproval by society, and difficulty with later tasks’. The notion of developmental tasks is one of central tendency and assumes a progression through the stages of the life cycle. The notion of individual tasks represents more the existentialist idea of people having to create their lives through their daily choices. Awareness of the parameters of human existence such as one's finitude and the contingencies of fate.
