Translating Theory to Practice: Thinking and Acting Like an Expert Counselor
A Guide to Thinking and Acting Like an Expertleads counseling students through the step-by-step process of receiving client information, synthesizing the data, and understanding how to respond and act effectively. With a central focus on this procedural knowledge, this guide also concentrates on developing the skills needed to build client relationships in order to elicit helpful client disclosure, and, ultimately, become an “expert” counselor who can extract the important information from a situation and move from the ‘if’ of the client data to the ‘then’ of an intervention or solution. While the text highlights four essential theories regarding successful counseling – solution-focused, behavioral, cognitive, and transtheoretical – what makesA Guide to Thinking and Acting Like an Expertunique is its central focus on applying these theories to guide analysis, decision making, and action in the field -- effectively moving counselors-in-training smoothly from comprehension to application to evaluation. Special Features Include:A focus on procedural knowledgeas opposed to pure theory that teaches students not only the differing philosophies of counseling techniques but also how to apply these practices to real counselor-client situations.Clinical illustrations of the conceptsand constructions discussed in the corresponding text that appear in each chapter, showing students how the theories and ideas discussed translate into real-life situations and cases.In-depth case verbatim with superimposed “counselor thinking”that clearly portrays the thought processes involved in listening to a client, extracting the pertinent information, and deciding on an appropriate course of action.Guided practice exercisesthat provide students with the opportunity to apply what they have read and think critically about the practices and procedures they have learned.A list of additional resourcesat the end of each chapter that assist students in independent projects or research – both at the library and on the web.