Counseling: A Comprehensive Profession

An excellent and comprehensive overview of counseling for the beginner. Historical, ethical, multicultural, counselor/client relationship, research, assessment, consultation, and theories of counseling are treated in this book. This book is great resource and will prove helpful in reviewing for comprehensive exams.

This book has been assigned for my first grad course in family counseling. It is an excellent book, well written and helpful.

Samuel Gladding writes an informative book for new counselors called, "Counseling - A Comprehensive Profession." He begins his book with an overview of the historical and professional foundations of counseling. He outlines trends of counseling before 1900 and brings it all the way up to when the book was published in 2007. I enjoyed reading about the highlights of the history of counseling and examining how the profession has changed over time. Gladding then goes into the personal and professional aspects of counseling and discusses the necessary personality and background of an effective counselor. I was surprised to learn that some counselors go into the profession for the wrong reasons. Some of these who are attracted to the counseling profession appear to have personality and adjustment problems (Gladding, 2007). Other reasons some may go into the field include: emotional distress, vicarious coping, loneliness, isolation, a desire for power, a need for love, or rebellion. I actually really had to examine my own personal motivation for going into the field and make sure that I had the personal qualities of an effective counselor. Those qualities include: an ability to listen, empathy, understanding, tolerance of intimacy, comfort with power, and an ability to laugh (Gladding, 2007). The author also talked about how to maintain effectiveness as a counselor by going through counseling yourself and engaging in personally fulfilling activities in order to avoid burnout. I think these ideas are important for all professions and they have challenged me to continue personal therapy and daily exercise and mediation so I can maintain my own sense of well being. Gladding also goes into the ethical and legal aspects of counseling and discusses the differences between the various codes of ethics. This was interesting to read and compare and contrast. I also enjoyed learning about ethics in specific counseling situations. This book also went into the counseling process and theories. Gladding discussed how to build a counseling relationship with empathy, non-verbal behavior, and effective listening. He went over counselor skills such as: leading, immediately, humor, confrontation, and rehearsal. The book gave a great deal of essential vocabulary and definitions important to the field: counter transference, transference, follow-up, referrals, etc. Gladding gave a brief overview of each of the theories: psychoanalytic, Adlerian, Humanistic, Behavioral, Cognitive, and Brief therapy. While these were not extensive by any means, they did give an overview and were helpful in understanding the whole picture and where different theories were coming from. Finally, Gladding ended his book with a discussion of career counseling and different options available. He spent time on the family life and family cycle within marriage and family counseling. He also spent time on elementary, middle, and secondary school counseling

Great introduction book to the counseling profession. Easy to follow and read. Concepts and ideas well developed and explained so that reading them was a joy.

This book really helped me get through the course