Abstract
Guidance officers and teachers have generally suffered from a poor working relationship. Tensions between these professions burst on to the public stage in Victoria with Haskell's article attacking Counselling, Guidance and Clinical Services (CGCS), a section of the Victorian Education Department. Haskell argued that guidance officers, by building barriers between themselves and teachers, had destroyed an effective school-based counselling service. The Director-General responded publicly that the relationship between teachers and CGCS was harmonious and productive. A study of teachers and principals in the Shires of Warragul and Buln Buln undermines both positions. Teachers and counsellors seldom co-operate; but this is because of the activities not simply of guidance officers but of teachers as well.