Counselling Skills For Health Professionals

An introduction to basic theoretical and practical skills essential for all health care professionals. Early chapters explore theoretical issues relating to the nature of counseling and self-awareness. Later chapters consider specific skills and discuss ways in which counseling skills can be learned. Includes individual and group exercises. This third edition contains new material on aggression and personal safety.

This is the second edition of a book that I hope continues to be of practical value. For counselling must always be that: practical. No amount of talking, on its own, can really make a difference if people do not end up doing something as a result of counselling. The practical thread remains an important one throughout this edition. Counselling Skills for Health Professionals is not just a 'how to do it' book: people are probably too complicated for that approach to be of much use. Counselling is never simply a matter of learning a range of skills which you then apply in a range of settings. In the end, counselling is about facing the person in front of you, listening to them carefully and then supporting them as they work through their problems. For many problems, there are no easy answers and counselling doesn't offer any 'quick fixes'. It is essentially a supportive process. There are many things it cannot do. It cannot change certain social and political situations. It cannot cure diseases. On the other hand, what it can do is offer people more hope. Often, just the fact that there is somone who is prepared to hear your story and to listen to you is all that is needed. I remain convinced that the key issue in all types of counselling is the ability to listen.

This book examines contemporary developments in nursing and health care in relation to the fundamental philosophy of counselling, the practicalities of counselling and relevant theoretical underpinnings. Community nurses often find themselves in situations which require in-depth listening and responding skills: for example, in helping people come to terms with chronic illness, disability and bereavement.

Working Alliance Skills for Mental Health Professionals provides expert guidance to mental health providers who wish to develop and augment their skills and competence in this area of practice. Each chapter deconstructs a dimension of the working alliance in psychotherapy, defining and describing specific mechanisms and interventions that can help professionals establish an alliance with their clients. The book includes skills in nonverbal communication, ways to foster the working bond with diverse clients, goal and task setting strategies, and verbal and interpersonal therapeutic skills, as well as mechanisms for repairing ruptures and for fostering the working alliance through supervision. The authors provide "in session" examples of how each skill may be implemented, and highlight the use of interventions through clinical vignettes and masked clinical cases. Working Alliance Skills for Mental Health Professionals is ideal for use in training programs in counseling, clinical psychology, and social work. It may also be valuable to professional-level practitioners interested in honing their skills in optimizing the working alliance.

Counselling skills are very powerful. Really listening and providing compassionate empathy without judging is a core part of social work practice with service users. This book provides a theoretically informed understanding of the core skills required to provide counselling interventions that work. It provides detailed discussion of three core skills which are identified as: talking and responding, listening and observing and thinking. Over 11 chapters these core skills are described in terms of what they mean, how they can be learned and developed, how they can be used and misused and, most importantly, how specific skills can be employed in a coherent and evidence-informed counselling approach. Loughran also looks in detail at the skills required to deliver interventions consistent with three approaches: Motivational Interviewing, Solution-Focused Work and Group work. Illustrative case examples and exercises offer further opportunities for reflection and exploration of self-awareness as well as for practising and enhancing skills development, thus making the book required reading for all social work students, professionals looking to develop their counselling skills and those working in the helping professions more generally. Terms such as social worker, therapist and counsellor will be included as they inform counselling skills in social work.

This counselling skills book will equip you with the necessary knowledge, skills and qualities to work with people in a range of different roles and settings. It defines counselling skills and introduces key skills including: listening and responding skills, empathy and different models, tools and techniques. Further chapters explore the importance of skills practice and self-awareness; ethics, boundaries and confidentiality; working remotely; working with difference and diversity, and different professional roles. Throughout, case studies show you how these skills can make a difference in practice, while exercises, including a student journal feature, help you reflect on your own attitudes to enhance your reflective practice. This book is an accessible guide to the BACP counselling skills competence framework for trainee counsellors and those using counselling skills as part of another professional role.