Helping the Client: A Creative Practical Guide [Paperback]

`Those who claim to have counselling among their skills should read this book and reflect on their own practice. This would in itself be a growth experience for many. The book is directed at anyone who is offering a counselling service to a client, whatever their profession' - British Journal of Psychiatry

`very stimulating and enriching to read. The clarity of description is refreshing and there are an abundance of insights into the essence of helping interventions... I was most delighted by a chapter on Catharsis and Transmutation which offers a coherent and straightforward perspective on the relationship between affective and transpersonal modes of intervention. I also enjoyed the diverse range of examples offered to illustrate the uSAGE of interventions at different phases of a helping session... This book makes the six category framework available in a comprehensive form. As such it offers any "helper" an illuminating perspective from which to reflect upon their work and it makes an effective practice developing tool accessible for use in training and supervision' - Self & Society

`few psychiatric nursing students of recent years could have failed to have heard of Heron's Six Category Intervention Analysis. This new book is a revised and enlarged edition of this book, with a new title. There are three authoritative kinds of intervention (prescriptive, informative, confronting) and three facilitative kinds (cathartic, catalytic, supportive). The author explores each of these categories in depth... (and) rewards one with a wealth of interventions which are, as the subtitle suggests, very creative but also very practical' - Nursing Times

`a timely re-introduction for professionals involved in the current community care changes and, as such, should appeal to a varied readership. It is also pleasant to see a British model of intervention on the market... The theory is presented as a tool for many different settings - the care sector being only one. Education, industrial personnel work and even personal relationships can benefit from these interventions' - Nursing Standard

`explains a range of interventions within a philosophical framework providing a book of value for practice or the teaching of practice... A real aid to the development of the repertoire of skills for helping clients... The skills imparted have a wider role than in counselling per se and because of their value in different educational groups the book deserves a wide readership' - Journal of the Institute of Health Education

`This book is a guide for anyone engaged in enabling another to develop personally. It is a very positive guide, with no sense of limits to the possibilities if the client wants to be helped... helpers could be neighbours, bank managers, teachers, nurses, social workers, work colleagues, professional supporters, counsellors, psychotherapists, priests or healers. Although there is an acknowledged bias towards counselling for personal growth, the skills training is equally applicable to counselling where personal growth is not the prime aim, such as career guidance or other problem-solving approaches... there are times when the writing is momentarily very poetic and moves my emotions as well as feeding my intellect... the book aims to de-mystify the skills and to make them available to all helpers, not just professionals. It also challenges us to learn the appropriate balance between facilitative authority and client self-direction... There is also a significant emphasis on the importance of liberating helpers from their own personal distress, so that their attention is free for the client; and on the value of grace and support, love and living as loving. These give this book the warmth of heart which I know characterises its author' - British Journal of Guidance and Counselling

`provides a useful and eclectic compendium of interventions and offers an interesting categorization scheme for these interventions based on the practitioner's goal or intention' - Contemporary Psychology --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

`The author rewards one with a wealth of interventions which are, as the subtitle suggests, very creative but also very practical' - Nursing Times

Helping the Client is the bestselling text which has long been used as the basis of interpersonal skills training in a wide range of professions from medicine to management. Based on John Heron's well-known six category model, the book presents different forms of helping behaviour which can be adopted by any practitioner working face-to-face with a client.

Drawing on his many years of experience as a therapist, consultant and teacher, the author explores the contexts and issues associated with these different forms of helping and, for each, describes a wide range of practical interventions for the practitioner to use. He examines the objectives of helping, states of personhood, the many ways in which helping can degenerate, the preparation and training of the practitioner, and examples of how the interventions can be used by different occupational groups.

Helping the Client is the Fifth Edition of the book originally entitled Six Category Intervention Analysis. Revised and enlarged throughout, with a new chapter on co-working, the book remains essential reading for the development of interpersonal skills, in counselling, management, health care, social work, youth and community work, education, and many other professions.