Introduction to Counselling Skills: Text and Activities - Paperback

by Richard Nelson-Jones (Author)

From leading skills expert Richard Nelson-Jones, this bestselling book is the ideal companion for any trainer or trainee wanting to acquire and develop the counseling skills key to effective therapeutic relationships.

Using an easy to follow, three-stage model, this Fourth Edition provides the answers to those all important questions:

• What are counseling skills and why are they important?
• How can I become more skilled and put the skills I have learnt into practice?
• What skills will help me manage crises and work effectively with diversity, ethical issues and dilemmas?
• How can I help my client to develop their own self-helping skills and maintain change after the counseling relationship has terminated?

Accessible, practical and concise, this new edition is packed full of up-to-date case examples, more material on self-care and diversity, as well as a brand new chapter on "Using Technology in Counselling". This is the ideal text for introductory courses in counseling skills, counseling and other professional areas including health care, management, education and social work.

Author Biography

Richard Nelson-Jones was born in London in 1936. Having spent five years in California as a 2nd world war refugee, he returned in the 1960s to obtain a Masters and Ph.D from Stanford University. In 1970, he was appointed a lecturer in the Department of Education at the University of Aston to establish a Diploma in Counselling in Educational Settings, which started enrolling students in 1971. During the 1970s, he was helped by having three Fulbright Professors from the United States, each for a year, who both taught students and improved his skills. During this period he broadened out from a predominantly client-centred orientation to becoming much more cognitive-behavioural. He also wrote numerous articles and the first edition of what is now The Theory and Practice of Counselling and Therapy, which was published in 1982. In addition, he chaired the British Psychological Society′s Working Party on Counselling and, and in1982, became the first chairperson of the BPS Counselling Psychology Section.

In 1984, he took up a position as a counselling and later counselling psychology trainer at the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology, where he became an Associate Professor. At first he was in a social sciences department, but then moved to the psychology department. During the period 1984 to 1997, he trained hundreds of students. He continued writing research articles, articles on professional issues and books, which were published in London and Sydney. As when he worked at Aston University, he also counselled clients to keep up his skills. In 1997, he retired from RMIT and moved to Chiang Mai in Thailand. There, as well as doing some counselling and teaching, he has continued as an author of counselling and counselling psychology textbooks. He now divides his time between Chiang Mai and London.