BRIEF BIOGRAPHICAL DETAILS

RICHARD HOUSE

(MA [Oxon], Ph.D., Cert.Couns.)

Graduating in Geography from Oxford University in 1976 (with First Class Honours), Richard gained a Ph.D. in Environmental Sciences from the University of East Anglia (Norwich) in 1984. After working in publishing he trained as a counsellor/psychotherapist (1987-95), and has worked in the 'human potential' field since 1990 in various capacities. He is a trained Steiner Waldorf class teacher (1997-9), and has just completed the formal training component of a Steiner Kindergarten training. Richard has been running the Norwich Steiner Parent & Child group since 1998, and also currently runs the Kindergarten, recently opened at Easter 2001. He is also Series Editor of Hawthorn Press's cutting-edge 'Early Years' series.

Richard has been a major contributor to the literature in counselling/psychotherapy since the early 1990s (with over 100 publications in the professional literature to date - full list available on request), including conceiving and co-editing the critically acclaimed anthology Implausible Professions: Arguments for Pluralism and Autonomy in Psychotherapy and Counselling (PCCS Books, Ross-on-Wye, 1997). A sequel to Implausible Professions - titled Ethically Challenged Professions: Enabling Innovation and Diversity in Psychotherapy and Counselling (co-edited with Yvonne Bates) - is currently in preparation, due to be published by PCCS Books next year. Richard's latest book, Therapy Beyond Modernity: Deconstructioning and Transcending Profession-Centred Therapy, is to be published in November 2002 by Karnac Books (London), and he is also preparing at least one other therapy book for publication - a collection of his published papers entitled With an Independent Voice: Critical Papers in Therapy and Counselling.

Richard currently writes extensively on Steiner Waldorf/humanistic education, on which he has had a number of articles published in the literature - the most recent being: "Stress, surveillance and modernity: the modernising assault on our education system" (Education Now, Feature Supplement, 30, Winter 2000); "Loving to learn: protecting a natural impulse in a technocratic age" (Paths of Learning magazine (USA), Spring 2002, pp. 32-6); "Stress and the Waldorf teacher: towards pre-emption through understanding" (Steiner Education journal, 35(2), 2001, pp. 36-41); two reviews of Stephen Sterling's recent book, Sustainable Education (W.A.S.T.E. web site and The Ecologist magazine, March 2002); and "Waldorf beyond 'sleepy sectarianism': bridge-building towards 'holistic' education" (Steiner Education journal, 36(2), 2002, pp. 38-42). He also writes a regular column on holistic education for The Mother magazine. A full list of educational publications is also available on request. A collection of his published education writings is to be published by Education Now Books, Nottingham in early 2003, titled The Trouble with Education: Stress, Surveillance and Modernity.

Richard has recently conceived and co-founded (with Peter Davies) the W.A.S.T.E. web site (Welfare Action for Surviving Teachers and Ex-teachers - http://www.wasteedu.org), which aims to provide a forum of support for teachers ravaged by the frenetic politicisation and deprofessionalisation to which the teaching profession has been subjected in recent years.

July 2002 Correspondence address: 13 Denbigh Road, Norwich NR2 3AA.