The Counseling Skills Practice Manual

The Counseling Skills Practice Manual is a practical guide for students who are working on improving their counseling skills. Designed as a companion to The Essential Counselor and its accompanying DVD of professionally demonstrated skills, this manual works directly with the student, offering a discussion of each skill set along with examples and practice exercises. The manual features 12 practice sessions, each of which focuses on a specific counseling skill set. Many of the essential skills are covered, such as using questions, nonverbal behaviors, making reflections of client meaning, and feeling. But the student also gains practice here with other important skills, such as learning how to deal with clients in crisis and reluctant clients, how to appropriately confront, and how to give and receive accurate and supportive feedback to one another. These practice sessions are designed to help the students recognize and build upon their natural interpersonal skill set as they learn new skills. They will help students become more competent in their use of counseling skills and feel more comfortable and confident in their roles as emerging counseling professionals.

Table of Contents:
Preface 1. Getting Started: Using Your Natural Interest and Curiosity About People 2. Giving and Receiving Feedback 3. Getting Started With a New Client: Nonverbal Behavior 4. Using Questions to Engage and Fact-Find 5. Using Reflections for Engagement and for the Exploration of Feeling 6. Using Little Tools With Big Effect: Silence and Simple Prompts 7. Hunches, Challenges, and the Use of Paradox 8. Making It Personal: Affirming and Promoting Immediacy 9. Ethical and Cultural Issues 10. Dealing With Crisis 11. Working With a Reluctant Client 12. Putting It All Together: Using Natural and Learned Skills About the Author

About the Author :
David R. Hutchinson prepares both undergraduate and graduate students for careers in psychology and counseling. His areas of special focus are group work, addictions, and grieving. A former Peace Corps volunteer, David’s priorities include travel and maintaining an international perspective in his life and work. He has trained counselors in Grenada and established sister school relationships between five schools in Vermont and Grenada. In Vermont, David continues his emphasis on intensive, process-oriented coursework with long weekend retreats at an off-campus lodge near Caspian Lake in the woods of the Northeast Kingdom. In 2006, David was honored with the Distinguished Faculty of the Year Award. He holds positions on the boards of the New England School of Addiction Studies and Northwest Counseling and Support Services in Franklin County, Vermont. He received his doctoral degree from State University of New York, Buffalo.