Basic Personal Counselling is an easy-to-read introduction to counselling skills for both professional and volunteer counsellors and workers in the helping professions. Fully up-to-date, and reflecting current best practice, this Australian text:
- Introduces counselling skills in a logical sequence and provides practical examples of the skills in action
- Show how combining counselling skills using an integrative approach can produce change
- Discusses the processes of change involved in counselling
- Provides approaches for counselling people with specific problems such as anger, depression, grief, or suicidal ideation
- Discusses professional issues including: confidentiality: ethics: record-keeping: arrangement of a counselling room: the need to care for yourself and the importance and use of supervision
Part I The nature and purpose of counselling
1 What is counselling?
2 The counselling relationship
3 Influence of the counsellor’s values
Part II Foundation skills
4 Learning foundation skills
5 Joining and listening
6 Reflection of content (paraphrasing)
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 III 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 IV 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 V Dealing with particular problems
29 Counselling those troubled by addiction
30 Counselling those troubled by anger
31 Counselling those troubled by depression
32 Counselling those troubled by grief and loss
Part VI Telephone counselling and crisis intervention
33 Telephone counselling
34 Crisis intervention
35 Responding to suicidal intentions
Part VII Professional issues
36 The counselling environment
37 Keeping records of counselling sessions
38 Cultural issues
39 Confidentiality and other ethical issues
40 Counsellor training and the need for supervision
41 Looking after yourself
David Geldard has worked for many years as a counselling psychologist. He has worked in private practice, in mental health, community health, and community agencies, in Queensland, Australia. Throughout his work he has specialised in counselling children, young people and their families and has worked extensively with emotionally troubled adults.
Dr Kathryn Geldard is an adjunct Senior Lecturer attached to the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences at the University of the Sunshine Coast where she has been responsible for establishing the Master of Counselling and Master of Counselling Practice programs. She has had extensive experience in mental health settings and in private practice having gained her initial experience working in the Phipps Clinic at the Johns Hopkins University Hospital in Baltimore, USA. Together with David Geldard she is the author of several textbooks on counselling.
This resource supports the delivery of:
- CHCCOM302C Communicate appropriately with clients and colleagues
- CHCCSL503A Facilitate the counselling relationship
- CHCTC302A Provide client-centred telephone counselling
It is useful for the delivery of:
- CHCCSL501A Work within a structured counselling framework
- CHCTC403A Provide telephone counselling in crisis situations.