The new edition of this excellent and user-friendly book is comprehensive and easy to read and comes alive with illustrative graphics and quotations. It is ideal for new and mature students in counselling and explains the core skills, conditions and models of counselling used in the UK.

The book is compelling reading for the student of counselling who is serious about self-reflection and personal development. Its practical approach is both exciting and refreshing and enables the reader to quickly understand and apply key counselling concepts, models and skills. In this way it helps the student or counselling practitioner keep up to date with current thought and models of counselling.

I would certainly recommend this enhanced second edition as an excellent resource for counselling courses and programmes.

Neil Morrison
Director of Institute of Counselling, Dixon Street Glasgow

Being invited to produce a second edition of what has proved a popular book is very satisfying, and writing it has been an exciting and rewarding experience for both of us. Since publication of the first edition, we have been greatly encouraged by the positive feedback received from students of counselling and tutors alike.

At the time of writing the first edition, the book was based on our experiences of running counselling workshops and lecturing. Now, with numerous published books between us, more knowledge of various aspects of counselling, and insight gained from a supervision group which we share in jointly with two other experienced colleagues, our learning has increased considerably and we hope this is reflected in this new edition.

We have gone through the first edition with a fine tooth-comb, removing several sections which, with the benefit of hindsight, now seem irrelevant. Most chapters have been reworked, updated, and new sections and additional examples have been added. Many of the original illustrations have been modified to improve clarity and consistency, and three new diagrams have been incorporated to enhance learning. The glossary, useful organisations, and further reading sections have been extensively developed and updated. These additions, plus a new and wide-ranging section of informative websites, provide the reader with an invaluable resource, thus adding a new dimension to the book, finally, to add a touch of warmth, some inspirational quotes have been added to the chapters.

Written in an easy reading style, this practical book will be of particular interest to anyone considering a career in counselling. With its wealth of case studies, examples of skills, illustrations, and exercises, it will also be a valuable tool for tutors of counselling skills courses. Additionally, it will benefit those who use counselling skills as part of their work: for example, mental health workers, alternative therapists, volunteer counsellors, teachers, managers, doctors, nurses, probation officers, social workers, personnel officers, trainers and tutors, ministers, residential workers, community workers and pastoral care workers. Indeed, it is our belief that the skills presented here can enhance all human relationships.

The framework of the book is based firmly in the person-centred approach of Carl Rogers, and the skills-based approach of Gerard Egan. Carl Rogers suggested that if counsellors can plant the core conditions necessary for growth – genuineness, unconditional positive regard, and empathic understanding - these enable a healthy and nurturing relationship between counsellor and client to flourish. He believed that these conditions were sufficient to bring about growth and change in clients, enabling them to move towards fulfilment of their own potential.

Gerard Egan suggested that in addition to providing the core conditions, counsellors may need to help clients make decisions, clarify and set goals, and to support them with implementing their action. In his three-stage model, Egan analyses the skills which the counsellor needs to develop and use for each stage of the model.

To become a professional counsellor takes years of training and supervised counselling practice, and we would not presume to suggest that by reading this book you will have at your fingertips all that it takes to become an effective counsellor. A knowledge and understanding of the major theories of counselling is important. However, counsellors can benefit from a model to guide them in their work, together with a repertoire of skills, and a careful study of the principles outlined here will provide a basis for counselling practice.

The book has been arranged in a logical sequence and we recommend that you work through the case studies and exercises in the sequence presented. Please ensure you have a pen and notebook handy to write down your responses to the exercises. Throughout most of the chapters we follow five fictional clients to demonstrate the skills.

We hope this new edition will provide you with some understanding of what is involved in counselling; will help you achieve some insight and appreciation of counselling, and will help you develop the skills you need to counsel more effectively.

To avoid the clumsy formula of he/she we have used them interchangeably throughout the book.

Finally, we would like to thank Giles Lewis, Nikki Read and Regina Schinner at How To Books, for their continued support for our work. Also, our appreciation goes to Neil Morrison for writing the foreword.