An accidental therapist?

By taking an historical, although not always linear, approach to events in my childhood, adolescence and adulthood, this paper reflects on how I became a counselling psychologist. The process was characterised by a gradual progression that included periods of uncertainty, of wanting to be ‘a therapist’ of some sort, and to eventually finding a professional identity as a counselling psychologist. In particular, the paper reflects on personal and political dimensions of events that occurred in the UK, Africa and the US and the meanings that are so intimately wound up in these.