Press reviews for: Counselling the Person Beyond the Alcohol Problem
The Drug & Alcohol Professional
The author presents us with a very readable person-centred strategy for working with problem drinkers as an alternative to the normally 'directive' therapies that are practiced. It is debatable whether the theoretical purists would agree with this classification.
Brian Thorne, Emeritus Professor of Counselling, University of East Anglia, UK
I commend this book to those person-centred practitioners who have not ventured into this area of counselling before because they have considered it too "specialist". They will, I believe, be encouraged and emboldened. I commend it, too, to practitioners from other traditions who continue to entertain the false notion that person-centred counselling is not suitable for really serious problems. They may glimpse in its pages the self-evident but often neglected truth that it is persons who have problems and persons who demand our respect and professional commitment.
Healthcare Counselling and Psychotherapy Journal
This is a highly readable book, recommended for any counsellor whose client may be drinking inappropriately or even a little too much. It includes numerous examples of illustrative dialogue between client and counsellor and a section about the family. It should become a core text for trainee alcohol counsellors. Furthermore, it provides an excellent summary of the application of the person-centred approach to managers of alcohol services, often not trained counsellors themselves, and sometimes suspicious of this way of working.
Diane Stead, Person-centred counsellor
I recently enjoyed reading 'Counselling the Person Beyond The Alcohol Problem' which I found informative and useful. I liked in particular the discussion/rationale of offering specialist knowledge in context as opposed to a sense of being an expert on your client. Like Richard, I struggle as best I can to offer the core conditions through my relationship with each client. What a relief I felt on reading his conviction that not to share helpful insight is to leave a client vulnerable - 'a form of negligence'. And that such insight, when proffered, arising from within a particular relationship is not being directive but, rather, congruent reading, this book will help me to be a more effective counsellor with 'this' client group, written as it is from a place of commitment to providing a caring and supportive therapeutic environment for clients.Thanks for writing a much-needed book!