Psychological type and counselling

Abstract

Psychological type as a theory of four major personality characteristics is applied to empathy and choice of strategy. The issues of how versatile counsellors should be and of how, specifically, type can be used in counselling, are discussed. The problem of losing weight is used to illustrate how strategies may be matched with clients of different types or temperaments. Type suggests the possibilities of quicker and deeper empathy, more appropriate challenging, a wider range of strategies, and which kinds of strategy are most and least likely to be effective with which clients.