Introduction

Abstract

Recently I visited a day centre for people with learning disabilities, and was asked to see a young man for counselling. James, I learnt from his keyworker, Sunil, had been given a diagnosis of a terminal brain tumour. Sunil explained that James had come to talk to him in obvious distress wanting to know about the future. Sunil said that he didn’t know what to do, he was not a ‘trained counsellor’, and was not qualified to listen to James. He said ‘I’m not a counsellor, I can’t talk to him about this.’

Counselling with people with learning difficulties can be the full flowering of human ordinariness. It can help devalued and marginalised people feel much more human, valued and worthwhile, able to cope with the ordinary sufferings and joys of life.

— David Brandon (1989)