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Counselling for Toads
- A Psychological Adventure
- Narrated by: Richard Pryal
- Length: 5 hrs and 6 mins
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Counselling for Toads
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Summary
Ideal Xmas or Birthday present for counsellors—aspiring or fully trained. Light work with a serious message.
Friendly introduction to the ideas behind counselling, suitable for voluntary organizations, schools, social work departments, hospitals, etc. A book which a counsellor could give to a client. Many libraries, both public & institutional should find a place for it on their shelves.
Carries endorsement by Claire Rayner
Wind in the Willows—widely known and loved, and has had extra publicity recently—with film & TV versions.
Easy and fun guides to psychoanalysis or philosophy—v. popular recently—eg, Tao of Poo, Freud for Beginners etc.
Critic reviews
"Brilliantly uses one of the world's favourite stories for all ages to engagingly and revealingly take us through the psychotherapeutic process and transactional analysis. Am I a better Toad for reading it? Of course I am!!!"—William Horwood, English novelist, author of the Wind in the Willows sequel series, Tales of the Willows
"Drawing on the figure of Toad, who is a rather pompous yet affectionate character who has fallen into depression, de Board takes us on a journey through the theory of Eric Berne’s classical transactional analysis. Toad goes to see Heron, the local counsellor, who is a gentle, kind, thoughtful, serious yet confrontational person, the type of person one would hope to meet in a counsellor. The theory is described clearly yet convincingly through the client/counsellor relationship with plentiful uses of metaphor, good humour, and irony that make us smile indulgently, not only at Toad but also at ourselves at times as we recognise some of our own frailties."—Helena Hargaden, psychotherapist, counsellor, and transactional analyst, author of Transactional Analysis: A Relational Perspective
"Through this anthropomorphic parable, de Board takes readers into a realistic, humorous, and humane account of being in psychotherapy. I suspect that Toad would find great pleasure to know that this story of his life, struggles, and recovering is still being read 25 years since its original publication. Counselling for Toads offers an overview of the basics of transactional analysis in practice. In the 25 years since the book was written, transactional analysis has continued to evolve and is now a model of human relations work applied in psychotherapy, counselling, education, and organizational development."—William F. Cornell, MA, TSTA, editor of the Routledge book series, Innovations in Transactional Analysis, and editor of Into TA: A Comprehensive Textbook on Transactional Analysis.
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What listeners say about Counselling for Toads
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- Sophie
- 18-01-24
Helpful
Helpful to gain an objective perspective. An enjoyable story, sometimes sad, sometimes enlightening but it captures life perfectly.
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- Mark Austen
- 24-01-23
deceptively simple
superb psychodynamic ideas dressed in the form of a children's story. highly recommended. listen and learn lots.
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- Amazon Customer
- 04-02-23
Transactional Analysis explained through narrative
I can see why this book is recommended to students of counselling and it's not a textbook! The story is realistic and moving, especially given the skill of the narrator to convey different emotions powerfully and the excellent voice acting of multiple different characters. I listened to the whole audiobook straight through, twice, as it was so engaging and packed full of therapeutic concepts (predominantly transactional analysis). The author cleverly uses Toad's experiences and his developmental journey during the counselling process to convey and explain these theoretical concepts in a comprehensive and easy to digest way. The pace of the story was very good and it seemed representative to me of Toad's possible progress in therapy. Although I found the ending (of the therapy) a bit abrupt, that too seemed like it probably could accurately depict how things could go.
Toad's rollercoaster of emotions and memories is highly relatable, whilst listening I thought a lot about what my own parents' upbringings would have been like, what mine was like and what psychological games I might be playing. The book is one of compassion and understanding. It illustrates well the unavoidable paradoxes of human existence and psyche, such as that harm is inherent in childhood (simply because a baby is born entirely helpless and dependent on others) and inevitably (that is not to say deliberately) harm is caused to children by their caregivers and that truly growing up is necessary to live a deeply fulfilled and authentic life but unfortunately, to get there is necessarily painful to look honestly at one's past, shed its influence and start actively choosing for yourself. It takes courage to face the discomfort rather than to keep trying to distract and avoid from it or just blaming others for how you feel, emotional work to become aware of and unpick the unconscious patterns, humility to accept that who you are and reality isn't what you've taken it to be, to recognise without judgement the psychological games we play, and to find compassion for one's self and to take the right responsibility, change your actions and life - becoming the adult is hard but it can be done and this book shows how one can do it, why it's important to do it and what life can be like if someone doesn't. It's a lovely mechanism to encourage self-reflection in the reader.
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1 person found this helpful
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- S. J. Litchfield
- 19-11-23
Great book
Think everyone could learn something from this without even trying too might listen to it again
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- justbostan
- 11-01-23
counselling for toads
Enjoyed every minute of it.
So much made sense. it was easy to listen to and so nice to listen as a story.
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- Lily
- 11-02-24
Wonderful book
I thoroughly enjoy with audible, an excellent and comprehensive introduction to the effect of counselling in a nutshell.
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- Louise
- 04-02-24
The narrator helped bring the characters to life.
Well narrated and a wonderful story. Thoroughly enjoyed this book and its warmth. An interesting way to gain perspective on counselling.
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- Judy E.
- 26-11-22
Learning counselling through a depressed Mr Toad
Really enjoyed this book. Used the Wind in the Willows characters to communicate some basic concepts in Transactional Analysis. Very engaging and amusing story.
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1 person found this helpful
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- Kate
- 15-11-23
Brilliant
This book is accessible, informative and enlightening. The best book I’ve read for years. Anyone wanting to begin understanding or improve their understanding of TA would benefit from listening to this book.
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- jo riley
- 22-12-23
Simply brilliant
Cleverly written and perfectly read; I wish I had listened to this years ago. An excellent depiction of the difference counselling can make including extremely helpful explanations.
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