Human Relationship Skills

Human Relationship Skills: Coaching and Self-Coaching presents a practical 'how to' guide to relationship skills, showing how readers can improve and, where necessary, repair relationships. This thoroughly revised and updated fourth edition reflects the increased interest in coaching, showing how it can be applied to everyday life. In this essential book, Richard Nelson-Jones takes a cognitive-behavioural approach to coaching people in relationship skills. These skills are viewed as sequences of choices that people can make well or poorly; covering a range of skill areas the book assists readers to make affirming rather than destructive choices in their relationships. It begins by addressing the questions of "what are relationship skills?" and "what are coaching skills?", and follows with a series of chapters which thoroughly detail and illuminate various relationship skills including: - listening and showing understanding - managing shyness - intimacy and companionship - assertiveness and managing anger - managing relationship problems and ending relationships The book concludes with a chapter on how users can maintain and improve their skills by coaching themselves. Accessibly written and using activities, the book will be appropriate for those involved in 'life coaching' as well as general counselling and therapy. It will be essential reading for lecturers, coaches and trainers as well as students and anyone who wishes to improve their relationship skills.

In this second edition of Human Relationship Skills the author demonstrates how such skills can be learnt, encouraging readers to accept responsibility for developing them and putting them into practice. New to this edition are chapters on what the reader brings to relationships, on choosing relationships and on strengthening them, reflecting the emphasis on people working together rather than alone. This theme is backed up by exercises and suggestions for personal experiments throughout the book which can be worked through by readers on their own, in pairs or in groups.

Dr. Andrew DuBrin holds a full professorship at the Rochester Institute of Technology.

"Roger Hennessey has written a wonderfully warm and readable book about the importance of a relationship-based approach to social work practice. It is full of wisdom, humanity, and commonsense. The book is rich with examples and exercises. You know that you are in the hands of an expert whose skill, experience and understanding shine and reassure on every page." Professor David Howe, School of Social work and Psychology, University of East Anglia Human relationships lie at the very heart of social work practice, and an understanding of their importance is a crucial aspect of training. This book considers the place of relationships in current practice and explores the ways in which social workers can use relationship skills to achieve the best possible outcomes for their clients. The book also offers a unique discussion of the social worker′s relationship with him or herself, arguing that self-awareness is as essential to good practice as an emotional understanding of the other. In doing so, the book promotes a new model for relationship-based social work, which emphasises the importance of both the inter- and intrapersonal. Opening with an introduction to the theoretical bases of the relationship-based model, the book then focuses on their direct application to social work practice. Key topics include: -Self-awareness and using oneself -Knowing the other person -Sustaining oneself -The ethics of relationship-based social work -Internalising knowledge, skills and values Using reflective exercises and case studies, the book encourages students to relate the tools they have learnt to practice scenarios from the real world, and is essential reading for all qualifying social work students.