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This is the third edition of the very popular Next Steps in Counselling Practice, revised, updated and expanded to accompany today's counselling students on their journey towards qualification.
Next Steps in Counselling and Psychotherapy Practice is aimed at the more advanced trainee and continues from where the PCCS Books classic First Steps in Counselling leaves off. Like First Steps in Counselling, it is intended as a companion guide, addressed directly to the student counsellor. It is not a theory textbook - there are plenty of those already on the market. Rather, it seeks to answer the many questions that may come up for the individual student counsellor while in training, drawing on the authors' accumulated experience as trainers and practitioners, and as one-time trainees themselves.
This book is designed to be of use to and facilitate the learning of all counselling and psychotherapy students, irrespective of the theories that underpin their training programmes and their own approaches to practice. It is not about one model of therapy but about what informs best practice across all therapies.
The first part of the book sets the scene, exploring 'human helping' in situations of distress and difficulty, and the place of counselling within that. The second part looks at the nature of the therapeutic relationship and human problems. Next comes the heart of the book - the section on the relationship in action, covering contracting, assessment, diagnosis and case formulation, counselling in difficult situations and the process of referring on. The fourth section looks more broadly at counselling in different contexts and settings and is written by contributors with specific expertise in these areas. These contributions cover anti-racist practice, using counselling skills in other professional contexts, working creatively, working online, and trauma-informed practice. The final, fifth section addresses continuing professional development as the student moves into practice, and deals with the issues of ethics, support and supervision, personal and professional development and reflection, reflexivity and research.
In addition to acquiring particular knowledge and skills, becoming an effective therapist requires developing aspects of the self. This book will enable the student counsellor to learn about themself as well as discover new ideas and understand more deeply the skills required to be an effective practitioner.
Introduction
Part 1: Getting your bearings
1. Thinking about human helping
2. Thinking about human distress and problems
Part 2: The therapeutic relationship
1. Psychological contact
2. What brings the client to therapy
3. The therapist prepares to help
4. Acceptance
5. Empathy
6. Presence: the inter-relating conditions
7. The client is aware of the conditions
Part 3: The relationship in action
1. Setting up and getting started: structuring and contracting
2. Co-creating a shared theory of therapy
3. Listening, exploring, and action
4. Power, questions and challenge
5. Counselling in difficult situations
6. Onward referral and signposting
Part 4: Contexts and settings
1. Anti-racist therapy practice - Patmarie Coleman
2. Embedded counselling as a complementary skill - Julia McLeod
3. Counselling remotely - Hamilton Sargent
4. An introduction to working creatively in therapy - Leigh Gardner
5. Trauma-informed therapy - Lilith Gough
Part 5: Continuing professional and personal development
1. Ethics, safety and accountability
2. Support and Supervision
3. Personal development
4. Reflection, reflexivity, and research
Nicola Blunden is a therapist, trainer, and writer with special interests in creative methods, plural identity, and collaborative ethics. She was previously Director of Studies for the person-centred pluralistic training at Metanoia Institute, London, and later led the counselling and psychotherapy master's programme at UWE Bristol. She is now the Deputy Head of Professional Standards at BACP. Nicola believes therapy should be a force for emancipation - and not just for individuals, but for society as a whole. Her research challenges the idea that colonial theories of therapy can ever be neutral or universally relevant.
Pete Sanders worked as a volunteer at ‘Off The Record’, Newcastle-upon Tyne, in 1972 before completing a degree in psychology at the university there, and then the postgraduate diploma in counselling at Aston University. He practised as a counsellor, educator and clinical supervisor for more than 30 years, and published widely on many aspects of counselling, psychotherapy and mental health, as well as co-founding PCCS Books in 1993. After practising and teaching counselling, he continued to have an active interest in developing person-centred theory, the politics of counselling and psychotherapy, and the demedicalisation of distress. He died in February 2022.
Paul Wilkins was a person-centred academic, practitioner and supervisor. He published several books on counselling and psychotherapy and was a senior lecturer in the Department of Psychology and Social Change at Manchester Metropolitan University. He died just as he was embarking on the third edition of Next Steps in Counselling and Psychotherapy Practice, in August 2022.
