The field of counseling is an exciting and challenging career choice. It is a profession that has a prolific history of enabling person-centered counseling approaches for individuals, couples, partners, and families, and facilitates therapeutic services for children, adolescents, adults, and older adults. This book offers an excellent resource for graduate-level coursework that relates to an orientation to the counseling profession, professional issues, and special topic seminars, as well as other counseling-related coursework. It provides both contemporary insight and practical strategies for working with the complexity of real-life issues related to assessment, diagnosis, and treatment of diverse clients and their families. The book provides professionals with chapters organized into the 10 CACREP and CORE content areas that address the awareness, knowledge, and skills required to work with children, adolescents, individuals, groups, couples, families, and persons from diverse cultural backgrounds. The content areas are: professional counseling identity, ethical and practice management issues, case management and consultation issues, multicultural counseling awareness, counseling theories and techniques, career counseling and human growth, assessment and diagnosis, counseling couples, families, and groups, counseling specific populations, and contemporary issues in counseling.

This book brings to life the International Classification of Functioning, Disability, and Health (ICF; World Health Organization, 2001) for rehabilitation counselors. The book presents contemporary information that can be used to educate, guide practice, and provide the foundation for emerging research related to the psychosocial aspects of disability and chronic disease. It provides a powerful and informative resource for students, practitioners, and scholars in developing and reinforcing rehabilitation counseling principles that guide rehabilitation counseling education, practice, and research. The book is organized into five major parts containing 30 chapters. Part I presents the historical perspectives on illness and disability. Part II offers insights into the personal impact of illness and disability on individuals by looking closely at several unique psychosocial life experiences. It discusses various theories of adaptation to disability, the unique experiences faced by women with disabilities, gender differences regarding sexuality, multicultural and family perspectives of disability, and quality of life (QOL) issues for those with disabilities. Part III addresses issues such as involvement, support, and coping of family members (parents, children, spouses, and partners) which includes family caregiving and counseling, to promote optimal medical, physical, mental, emotional, and psychological functioning of the person with a disability. Part IV reflects the growing need for diagnostic, treatment, and preventive interventions, and the coordination of important resources to help persons with chronic illnesses and disabilities achieve optimal levels of independent functioning. It delves on substance use disorders, trauma-related mental health problems among combat veterans, and assistive technology. The final part addresses several contemporary issues faced by persons with chronic illness and disabilities (CIDs) that are relevant to counselors and practice. It discusses newer challenges that these individuals face, including obesity, poor nutrition, poverty, suicide, threat of terrorism, and depression, all of which are on the rise in the United States.

Aside from the study of theories of counseling and psychotherapy, there is probably no other area of study that is more related to the everyday practice of counseling that than the area of professional ethics. This book is a major revision of the prior edition, providing continuity to faculty who has used the book in teaching courses on ethics in counseling, but with notable changes and additions. The new edition has a distinct and timely focus on counseling as a profession. A new section provides material that not only applies to mental health practice generally, but it applies specifically to specialty practice with chapters specifically titled and focused on counseling specialties. Many of the early chapters are updated versions of those that appeared in the earlier edition. The book has been organized to provide the developing mental health professional with a clear and concise overview of ethical issues in counseling and psychotherapy. It intends to provide a thorough and scholarly foundation, defining ethical concepts and practice, legal issues, methods for clarifying values, decision-making models, and contemporaneous and emerging issues. The book is broad in its coverage of the most practiced specialties in mental health practice, and provides an efficient and effective overview of the broad scope of particular areas addressed in counseling. The specialities addressed are: mental health counseling; school counseling; couple, marital, and family counseling; rehabilitation counseling; addictions counseling; career counseling; and group counseling. It is hoped that this book will inspire ethically sensitive counselors and psychotherapists who will reflect before acting and who will consult with educated colleagues at those moments when ethical dilemmas arise. Ethical counselors and psychotherapists are those who have the best interests of their clients at heart, and who also respect the rights that derive from being professionals.