Introduction

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.’