You do not currently have permission to view the full text for this document. Please sign in to an account with an active subscription or contact support.
This is not really a handbook, but a volume of thirty-six chapters, each being on a separate aspect of counselling and written by a different author. It is thus long, repetitive, confusing and sometimes boring. Counselling is defined as a process of helping individuals to cope with certain kinds of personal problems. Following three introductory chapters, there are sections dealing with Children and Youth, Family and Community, Employment and Vocation, and Religions, plus nine chapters on Special Problems.
One good thing about the book is the advocacy of an enquiring, understanding, psychotherapeutic, rather than a didactic judgemental approach. The chapter on Counseling in Nursing Practice is particularly good in bridging the gap between the didactic and understanding attitudes of mind. However, the attempt to introduce a casework approach in the employment agency seems to make life unduly complicated: here and elsewhere a simpler advice and information technique might be more appropriate. One wonders whether the steps suggested might not result in increased pressure on the community psychiatric services.
The book is not likely to be read as a whole by students and social workers but is rather for reference by teachers in this field, or for students of some particular aspect.