This essay is a reflective evaluation of the skills of counselling applied to loss and grief in a student’s process of learning how to travel the journey of the therapeutic relationship with the client. The essay will contain reflections of verbatim examples from during the practice session in which Steven Felice is the client, and Caroline Roberts the counsellor. The essay will also discuss via relevant literature the process of person-centred counselling in the focus of loss through bonds of attachment and continuing bonds.

The practice session took place in counselling room two, at ACAP on the 21st of April 2010, between Steven Felice and Caroline Roberts. Steven wanted to discuss the loss of a friendship. This friendship for Steven was a friendship that had begun in early childhood and carried a deep bond of attachment, for which Steven is finding the loss hard to accept. During the session I spent the majority of the time listening to Steven and reflecting as best I could the content and emotion of his experience. When dealing with loss in relation to friendships it is important to offer the client the same respect to emotional depth of expression as that of a person experiencing loss from a death.

For Steven the loss of significance surrounded his childhood friend no longer wishing to be as close as usual due to her recent change of religious affiliation. For Steven this seems difficult to accept, as he was willing to try to understand and acknowledge her needs and she seems to have rejected him. He also seems to feel loss around his confidence with how he relates and interacts with people, which appears to be trust related issues. Almost a loss of innocence has been triggered by the loss of this important attachment bond. Loss is such an immense part of living and loving that it would be difficult to counsel without an understanding of the theory of