Translating Theory to Practice: Thinking and Acting Like an Expert Counselor [Paperback]

A Guide to Thinking and Acting Like an Expert leads 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 makes A Guide to Thinking and Acting Like an Expert unique 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.

 

Since research suggests that procedural knowledge is best acquired through practice accompanied by feedback, author Richard D. Parsons keeps this pair of techniques in mind throughoutA Guide to Thinking and Acting Like an Expert. Each chapter contains case illustrations, directed practice activities, and case presentations with counselor analysis — all making the theories and methods covered in the book easier for students to synthesize and internalize. 

A Guide to Thinking and Acting Like an Expert leads 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 makes A Guide to Thinking and Acting Like an Expert unique 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 knowledge as 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 concepts and 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 exercises that 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 resources at the end of each chapter that assist students in independent projects or research – both at the library and on the web.

Richard D. Parsons holds a Ph.D. In psychology from Temple University and is currently a Professor of Counselor Education at West Chester University in Pennsylvania.  He has authored 26 texts including Counseling Strategies That Work! (Allyn & Bacon, 2006), The Ethics of Professional Practice (Allyn & Bacon, 2000), and The Skilled Consultant (Allyn & Bacon, 1995). He is a member of the American Psychological Association, the Pennsylvania Psychological Association, and the Pennsylvania Counseling Association, where he has been named Pennsylvania’s Counselor of the Year.