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Egan, Gerard


Gerard Egan  

The Skilled Helper


The Skilled Helper
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The Skilled Helper is a long-established and very well respected resource
for counsellors and psychotherapists. It is a practical and action-oriented
guide to assist therapists (or indeed helpers of other kinds) in their task to
get their clients to focus on and achieve realistic outcomes.

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Being in the first stages of my training and work as a counsellor, I have not
yet had much chance to apply the knowledge that can be found in The Skilled 
Helper. However, the book is packed with useful ideas and examples, and I'm
certain that I will be able to make good use of it in future.

The Skilled Helper is very much a practical guide, containing little or 
no theory or speculation. At first I was a little confused by the diagrams, each
with its row of three spirals, but later grasped the basic three-step pattern 
that prevails throughout. In some ways, Gerard Egan's approach reminds me of
NLP, with his emphasis on techniques as tools that can be selected or rejected
according to the nature of the situation, rather than as components of a
rigidly-applied schema. Flexibility is the keyword here. As well as pointing
the way, Egan also sheds some light on the "shadow side" of helping, showing us
some of the pitfalls into which even the most well-intentioned helper may tumble.  

As a problem-management resource, The Skilled Helper is not only relevant
to counselling but also to life coaching and could in fact be used by anyone who
needs to interact with employees, students, trainees or offspring. Gerard Egan's
ideas are very applicable to helpers within organisations, (he has in fact also
written a book called Working the Shadow Side, which is about the unspoken,
implicit beliefs that operate in organisations) but can just as well apply to
someone making a living as a freelance or self-employed helper of any persuasion.
The lack of any deep theoretical bent is an advantage, in this sense; I think
that any helper, therapist or trainer in the making, whether he or she is a 
Jungian, a Rogerian, an NLP practitioner or a life coach, could make use of the
ideas in this book.

The counselling model with which I am most familiar is the client-centred or
Rogerian approach, which has empathy as one of its core conditions. It has been
interesting for me, then, to encounter an approach where empathy is important but
is not the be-all and end-all. Empathy is important in the earliest stage of the
process, where gaining rapport with the client is crucial, but becomes secondary
later on, when helper and client are focussed on a desired outcome. Egan makes it
clear during the book that he considers a therapist who simply empathises and 
reflects, but does not move on to outcomes and strategies, to be failing the
client. 

As I said, I'm not yet in a position where I can make fullest use of the
techniques and ideas in The Skilled Helper. But even at the stage where I
am at now, I can see that it is an excellent resource and a treasure-trove of
practical advice. I'm sure that I will come back to this book once I've started
to work as a counsellor; who knows, maybe at some point a second review will be
in order. 

© Alex Cull, 4th May 2005

Well, that was almost exactly three years ago. I've actually done a bit of 
counselling since then, but it hasn't exactly taken off. So quite a lot of 
that early enthusiasm has gone, and it's difficult to recall being fired up by
The Skilled Helper and similar books. Maybe it will all come back when I
get into it again. But I can't help feeling that may take some time.

Alex Cull, 3rd May 2008


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