If the counselling and psychotherapy profession had a cricket team then Cooper and McLeod might make a fine opening pair. Historically Freud and Jung are the greatest openers we've ever had, though they ended their careers on opposing teams. Sorry, I'm being silly! Cooper and McLeod have written an excellent book on the need for a pluralistic approach to counselling and psychotherapy. They argue, convincingly I think, that no one school of therapy has all the answers when it comes to helping clients make changes; instead the authors recommend an approach based on goal setting and collaboration: an exploration with the client of the changes they would like to make, the tasks that need to be completed to get there and the methods most appropriate to achieving those tasks. Interestingly Cooper and McLeod extend their pluralism to counselling research, training and supervision. So the book advocates a sea change in how we approach therapy, one that is inclusive, drawing on many traditions to makes sure 'each client gets the therapy that is most suited to them' (vi). This seems to be the trend in therapy. I'm reminded, for instance, that Yalom talks of the psychotherapist creating a therapy for each individual client, though I would call it co-creating. It's an approach I follow and I'm grateful to the authors for producing what amounts to a manifesto for the pluralist approach. It's going to be essential reading for students attending my courses on brief therapies, giving coherence to the plethora of different but equally valid approaches they'll study.
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