Encyclopedia of Counseling

Editor/Author: Leong, Frederick T.
Publication Year: 2008
Publisher: Sage Publications

ISBN: 978-1-4129-0928-0
Category: psychology
Image Count: 29
Book Status: Available

The Encyclopedia of Counseling provides a comprehensive overview of the theories, models, techniques, and challenges involved in professional counseling.

This book is found in the following Credo Collections:

• SAGE Psychology Collection
• SAGE Reference Collection
• Psychology Collection

See what others are saying:

• Editor in chief Leong notes in the introduction that the principle reason for creating this work is to give "psychology away" by "sharing 'practical theories' with the public." Drawing on the expertise of the editors and hundreds of expert contributors, this set provides readers with a valuable current resource for counseling psychology. Users may treat this resource, with its nearly 600 entries, either as one comprehensive set or as four stand-alone volumes, each of which represents a subset of counseling topics. The volume titles are "Changes and Challenges for Counseling in the 21st Century" (vol. 1), "Personal and Emotional Counseling" (vol. 2), "Cross-Cultural Counseling" (vol. 3), and "Career Counseling" (vol. 4). Entries in each volume extend through the complete alphabet. A Reader's Guide in the beginning of each provides cross-referencing of topics among the volumes and supplements the extensive index to the set (which comprises nearly 200 pages of vol. 4). Most entries end with a list of suggested readings, and some include lists of related Web sites. Written for a broad range of counseling professionals including psychiatrists, psychologists, social workers, nurses, and educators and the interested public, this work gives a comprehensive overview of related topics and issues. Readers will find the history of counseling, ethics and standards, psychopathology, normal development and aging, psychosocial behaviors, subdisciplines, theories, therapies, techniques, and interventions. Biographies of individuals who have influenced and contributed to the field are distributed throughout. As cultural competence has recently become an important consideration in the healing and helping arts, the third volume's focus on cross-cultural counseling is a clear indication of the publication's currency. This extensive, up-to-date resource for the field of counseling is a crucial work for academic libraries (and a very important one for large public libraries).

  J. Coffey
  Michigan State University

• The Encyclopedia of Counseling attempts to provide an overview of the major topics in the professional counseling field, including theories, techniques, important individuals, organizations, challenges, and more. This four-volume set includes approximately 600 articles separated into one of four main subject headings and listed alphabetically. Each of the four broad subjects is assigned to a volume, allowing each volume to operate individually or together as a set. The volumes cover the following topics: "Changes and Challenges for Counseling in the 21st Century," "Personal/Emotional Counseling and Mental Health Problems," "Cross-Cultural Counseling and Psychotherapy," and "Career Counseling." Within this framework the encyclopedia covers such areas as assessment and research methods, economic/work issues, human development, life transitions, legal and ethical issues, psychosocial traits and behavior, sub-disciplines, and more.This effective four-volume structure allows for a more logical and focused study than a traditional encyclopedia. By organizing entries into categories of similar topics the user may find that adjacent entries apply to their research, whereas typical encyclopedias alphabetize their entries across multiple volumes with no advanced organizational method.This resource is very well organized and simple to navigate when locating information. Users looking for an entry on a specific topic can simply pick up the appropriate volume and locate the topic alphabetically. Users unsure of which volume will contain their topic can look at the "List of Entries" included in each volume, or refer to the complete index included in volume 4. Users can also take advantage of the "Reader's Guide" listed in each volume, which helps in locating entries on similar or related topics.The Encyclopedia of Counseling is authoritative, comprehensive, simple to use, and more importantly, functional. The target audience includes students, scholars, and professionals, resulting in a varying amount of terminology, but the entries are generally well written, understandable, and helpful for even the casual user. This is a valuable tool for counseling research and reference.

  Tyler Manolovitz
  Digital Resources Coordinator, Sam Houston State Univ.-Newton Gresham Library, Huntsville, Tex.