This volume is a guide to the range of qualitative methodologies and techniques available to evaluate how and why counselling works.

1. Qualitative research in counselling and psychotherapy: achievement and potential -- 2. The philosophical basis of qualitative research -- 3. Doing qualitative research -- 4. Phenomenological research -- 5. Ethnographic approaches to research in counselling and psychotherapy -- 6. Using grounded theory -- 7. Variants of grounded theory: thematic analysis, Interpretive Phenomenological Analysis, Consensual Qualitative Research, and ideal type analysis -- 8. Analysis of conversation and discourse -- 9. Narrative analysis -- 10. Personal experience methods: heuristic research and autoethnography -- 11. Using participation in inquiry to enhance practical knowing: action research -- 12. Qualitative case studies -- 13. The role of qualitative methods in outcome research -- 14. The concept of validity in qualitative research -- 15. Next steps: taking the research agenda forward.