Basic Personal Counselling (BPC) is an easy-to-read introduction to counselling skills for both professional and volunteer counsellors, and workers in the helping professions.

This ninth edition of Basic Personal Counselling includes new content on self-care and the use of technology in counselling, as well as examples of counselling skills in practice. It encourages you to find ways of testing out your assumptions and discover if there is more that you could do or learn to improve and develop in your chosen career. Journaling, video recording with playback and reflecting team supervision are explained as opportunities to process and monitor your practice, along with easy-to-use templates to record your progress.

PART 1 THE NATURE AND PURPOSE OF COUNSELLING 1. What is counselling? 2. The counselling relationship 3. Influence of the counsellor's values Part 1 Training group exercises

PART 2 FOUNDATION SKILLS 4. Learning foundation skills 5. Joining and listening 6. Reflection of content 7. Reflection of feelings 8. Reflection of content and feelings 9. Use and abuse of questions 10. Summarising 11. Matching language and metaphor 12. Creating comfortable closure Part 2 Training group exercises

PART 3 PROMOTING CHANGE 13. Various approaches to counselling 14. Working collaboratively 15. An integrative approach to helping a person change 16. Combining skills to facilitate the change process Part 3 Training group exercises

PART 4 ADDITIONAL SKILLS FOR PROMOTING CHANGE 17. Normalising 18. Using the 'here and now' experience 19. Confrontation 20. Challenging self-destructive beliefs 21. Externalising 22. Solution-focused counselling skills 23. Exploring polarities 24. Reframing 25. Making decisions 26. Facilitating action 27. Experiential counselling skills 28. Facilitating relaxation Part 4 Training group exercises

PART 5 DEALING WITH PARTICULAR PROBLEMS 29. Counselling those troubled by addiction 30. Counselling those troubled by anger 31. Counselling those troubled by depression 32. Counselling clients experiencing anxiety (NEW) 33. Counselling those troubled by grief and loss 34. Crisis intervention 35. Responding to suicidal intentions Part 5 Training group exercises

PART 6 TECHNOLOGY AND COUNSELLING 36. Telephone counselling 37. Internet counselling Part 6 Training group exercises

PART 7 PROFESSIONAL ISSUES 38. Becoming a counsellor (NEW) 39. The counselling environment 40. Keeping records of counselling sessions 41. Cultural issues 42. Confidentiality and other ethical issues 43. Counsellor training and the need for supervision 44. Looking after yourself

9th Edition

Paperback 416 pages

ISBN: 9780170451871