Basic Counselling Skills: A Helper's Manual

From leading skills expert Richard Nelson-Jones, this third edition remains the most accessible and practical introduction to the basic counselling skills essential for the helping professions. Steeped in vivid case examples, experimental activities and therapeutic dialogue, this book provides a thorough, step-by-step guide to the subject, working through each stage of the helping process. The key skills covered include: - Starting, structuring and summarizing the helping process - Active listening - Offering challenges and feedback - Facilitating problem solving - Improving clients' self-talk, rules and perceptions - Coaching, demonstrating and rehearsing - Managing resistance and changing referrals - Conducting middle sessions and terminating help Accessible, practical and concise, this bestselling book also discusses ethical issues and dilemmas, multicultural and gender aware helping, providing a master class for anyone using counselling skills in the course of their work.

Review :
Richard Nelson-Jones says his preface to the 3rd Edition is "concise and to the point." So is the rest of the book. This is a back-to-basics, down-to-earth, no-nonsense, concise and to the point summary of counselling skills. Theory, skills and practice blend together for a comprehensive overview of what skills underpin counselling, whether formal or informal. The 3rd edition carries on the transitions of the previous books - how can we train in as simple and easy a way as possible while still retaining the depth and gravitas that is counselling? This book does that - it provides overviews of skills, provides lots of relevant examples, leads the reader systematically through the skills and provides exercises to embed them within the person. All the hard work has been done. The vines have been cared for, the grapes have been harvested and now we are left to enjoy the wine. This book is the wine and Richard Nelson Jones had done all the hard work in making simple and basic what counselling skills are all about. Its simplicity belies the depth of background that has gone into researching and writing this book. Based on solid research evidence, sifted through the vast literature on counselling and counselling skills and grafted from the experience of teaching and training in counselling, Richard Nelson-Jones pulls it all together into a comprehensive review of the key, essential skills that go to make up a counsellor, formal or informal. Approximately four years ago I wrote that the second edition of Basic Counselling Skills was a master class that brought its readers systematically through the full range of skills needed for counselling or helping. I am pleased to say that this new edition is an updated master class in the same subject. I am sure that the popularity of the two previous editions will be more than reflected in the helpfulness of the third." Professor Michael CarrollVisiting Industrial Professor, University or Bristol"