This practical book is designed to help beginning counsellors and therapists examine and improve their work. It is addressed to those practitioners who choose to, or are obliged to work within a brief contact; and to all those who recognize the reality that counselling and therapy after turn out to be much briefer than their popular image might suggest. The ideas in the book are culled from the authors' own experiences as seasoned practitioners of brief counselling as well as from their work as supervisors and trainees of cousellors. They address the kind of questions frequently asked by trainee and beginning counsellors, and provide guidelines rather than injunctions. They do not assume that any particular counselling orientation is more fitting for brief counselling than any other, and they give various examples of how practitioners from different schools might regard particular issues. They provide helpful hints from a broad perspective and an invaluable resource for fine-tuning the work of counsellors and therapists.