Applied Helping Skills: Transforming Lives

With its practical, experiential approach, the Second Edition of Applied Helping Skills: Transforming Lives covers the basic skills and core interventions needed to begin seeing clients. By approaching therapy as an art rather than from a prescriptive diagnostic position, this text encourages readers to look at every situation differently and draw from their embedded knowledge to best serve the individuals in their care. Authors Leah Brew and Jeffrey A. Kottler weave humor and passion into their engaging prose, effectively conveying their excitement and satisfaction for doing helping work.

Table of Contents:
Part I: Foundations for Skills Chapter 1: The Process Revealed Reading Minds and Other Superpowers My Psychic Powers Secrets Revealed How Therapists Enhance Their Powers Power and Influence You Gotta Be Desperate It’s All About Leverage Amateurs Versus Professionals A Few Missing Ingredients The Perfect Counseling Student Chapter 2: Clients in Need: Individual, Social, and Cultural Factors Cultural Context of the Client Experience Cultural Skills and Competencies Become Familiar With Cultural Differences Assess Stage of Cultural Identity Overview of a Client Concern Ethical Considerations in the Practice of Helping Skills How to be a Good Client Decisions, Decisions Chapter 3: Models of Helping Theories and Their Offspring An Integrated Model Part II: Skills to Use With Individuals Chapter 4: Skills for Builiding Collaborative Relationships Your Best Relationships Uses of the Therapeutic Relationship About Empathy Relationship Skills Chapter 5: Skills of Assessment and Diagnosis The Mental Status Exam The Basics of Conducting an Intake Interview Structured Intake Interviews Special Considerations in Assessing Addiction Special Considerations in Assessing Physical or Sexual Abuse Special Considerations for High Suicide Risk Special Considerations for Crisis Situations Objective and Subjective Sources of Information Models of Diagnosis Remembering What You See and Hear Making Things Fit Your Style Chapter 6: Exploration Skills An Overview of the Exploration Stage Structuring the Conversations Opening With a Story Asking Questions Reflecting Skills Putting Reflecting Skills Together Exploring the Past Summarizing Themes Chapter 7: Promoting Understanding and Insight The Uses of Insight The Limits of Insight Selected Skills for Promoting Understanding What Happens Next? Chapter 8: Facilitating Action Transition From Insight to Action Dealing With Resistance The Miracle Question Setting Goals Generating Alternatives Reinforcing Behavior Relaxation Training Using Rehearsal and Imagery Using Role-Playing Using the Empty Chair Using the Transference Chapter 9: Maintaining Progress and Evaluating Results Some Assessment Challenges Skills of Evaluating Outcomes and Measuring Results: The Client’s Efforts Skills of Evaluating Outcomes and Measuring Results: The Therapist’s Efforts Ending Therapy Effectively Part III: Skills to Use With Multiple Clients Chapter 10: Skills for Family Therapy and Other Roles for Therapists A Different Way of Looking at Things Structuring a Family Interview Couples Counseling Specialized Skills for Working With Children The Roles You Take as a Therapist Chapter 11: Group Leadership Skills Group Stage Development Group Dynamics Group Leadership Approaches Unique Ethical Challenges Chapter 12: Where to Go Next What If I Don’t Know What to Do? What If My Supervisor Finds Out How Little I Know? What If I Hurt Someone? What If I Don’t Have What It Takes? Some Advice About Where to Go Next

About the Author :
Leah Brew is Chair and Professor in the Department of Counseling at California State University, Fullerton. She teaches, presents and publishes in the areas of basic counseling skills and multiculturalism. Specifically, she has several publications and projects that have been centered on working with multiracial couples, families, and individuals. She collaborated on a project to establish Competencies for Counseling Multiracial Populations, which was endorsed by the American Counseling Association. She has a small private practice where she specializes in working with diverse clients who struggle with depression and anxiety and are survivors of trauma. She also supervises students at a community agency who are working toward their master’s degrees in counseling. She is active in the profession of counseling in the state of California, and helped to obtain the Licensed Professional Clinical Counseling credential in California, the last state to license counselors. She was also appointed a gubernatorial position as the LPCC representative on the state licensure board, and has taken a leadership role in improving supervision requirements in the state.  Jeffrey A. Kottler is one of the most prolific authors in the fields of counseling, psychotherapy, and education, having written more than 90 books about a wide range of subjects. He has authored a dozen texts for counselors and therapists that are used in universities around the world and a dozen books each for practicing therapists and educators. Some of his most highly regarded works include Creative Breakthroughs in Therapy, The Mummy at the Dining Room Table: Eminent Therapists Reveal Their Most Unusual Cases and What They Teach Us About Human Behavior, Bad Therapy, The Client Who Changed Me, Divine Madness, Change: What Leads to Personal Transformation, Stories We’ve Heard, Stories We’ve Told: Life-Changing Narratives in Therapy and Everyday Life, and Therapy Over 50. He has been an educator for 40 years, having worked as a teacher, counselor, and therapist in preschool, middle school, mental health center, crisis center, nongovernmental organization, university, community college, private practice, and disaster relief settings. He has served as a Fulbright scholar and senior lecturer in Peru and Iceland, as well as worked as a visiting professor in New Zealand, Australia, Hong Kong, Singapore, and Nepal. He is professor of counseling at California State University, Fullerton.

Review :
"Applied Helping Skills: Transforming Lives, Second Edition discusses profound principles of helping in a simple conversational manner." "This is a great text, as it provides an accessible approach to the essentials of applied helping skills and demystifies the helping profession." "The simplicity in the delivery of this text book is a key component is helping students at undergraduate and graduate learn the key principles involved in helping people to transform their lives. This textbook offers the student an insight into developing excellent skills in becoming therapists."