My friend Pat Milner, who has died aged 91, was one of the first student counsellors in the UK. Her career started in 1965 when she applied for a pioneering diploma course at Reading University.
In a 2001 interview with her former colleague Stephen Palmer, she described it as a “road to Damascus experience”. “For the first term, I believed the theories of this man, Carl Rogers, were ludicrous and would never work,” she said. “What did he mean ‘really listen’? Of course we listened! In practice, genuineness, warmth and empathy opened up a new world of human understanding. It was mind-blowing. Thus converted, I hitched up my wagon and set off to pan for more psychological gold.”
