Can counselling/psychotherapy be helpful in reducing barriers to learning for the person with specific learning difficulties?

This paper explores the relative helpfulness of counselling/psychotherapy to individuals experiencing specific learning difficulties, as a means of reducing barriers to learning by allowing the individual to return to learning from experience. Highlighting earlier studies which indicate the positive impact of psychological therapy on educational attainment and inhibiting factors such as stress, this research investigates the experience of counselling from the perspective of the person with specific learning disabilities. Using Empirical Phenomenological Research, the study explores their understandings of the circumstances and factors by which therapy is found to be helpful or unhelpful, seeking to contribute to debate on whether psychological interventions that are 'specialist' in orientation are potentially more helpful than 'generalist' therapeutic approaches. The findings point both to the potential value of psychological therapies for persons with special educational needs as a complement to other interventions and also to the importance of considering the experiences of the client in addition to diagnostic assessments.