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Dear Mo Just a few quick thoughts: I wonder whether you are starting from the wrong premise? Perhaps if we first ask the question "Can counselling be 'informal'?" it might give us a clue. As you might guess, my own belief is that counselling is a formal process deliberately undertaken with some aims or 'objectives' planned at the start. For me anytihing less than this would be 'support'. or some other interaction. I do believe however, that the 'atmosphere' can be 'informal and, where children are concerned might need to be. However, even here there are difficulties insofar that it might depend upon what the purpose of the 'counselling' is - pre-trial work, for instance, would have to be very careful that it didn't 'tamper with the evidence'. A second question that you might consider in relation to this study is whether the developmental age of the individual child would significantly alter the counselling relationship. I would suggest that it would have a very big effect, with the younger child being more 'concrete' in his/her thinking as opposed to the adolescent. Therefore, a 'pure' counselling approach might have to be more 'directive' with the younger child, which is where play therapy (for instance) has positive uses in that it bypasses the 'verbal needs' in communication. Best wishes Paul http://www.traumatherapy.co.uk http://www.traumatraining.com