Review

Counselling and despair

THE USE OF COUNSELLING SKILLS IN THE EMERGENCY SERVICES
Angela Hetherington
Open University Press, 2001

This book doesn’t pull any punches. Its subject matter includes graphic description of the situations (and subsequent despair) that emergency services professionals encounter. Yet it remains very readable: the genuine commitment and involvement of the author is evident.

It is an altogether remarkable book, and one that should be welcomed by practitioners everywhere – not only counsellors, but also those seeking to understand their own responses and those of their colleagues more readily. Angela Hetherington cuts to the quick, in dealing with her subject matter, and does not hesitate to address real issues, real dilemmas – and the very real sense of guilt and failure that committed professionals can feel, when faced with impossible and overwhelming odds.

It is fully referenced by chapter, with final bibliography and index, and includes within the appendices some very useful summaries – including as straightforward a description of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and its secondary symptoms as I have seen anywhere.

I shall recommend this little book to as many of my students as I can. It gives an honest view of the realities of professional life in the emergency services, and the emotional toll that can take.