The Heart of Counseling: Practical Counseling Skills Through Therapeutic Relationships

Now in its fourth edition, The Heart of Counseling is a key resource helping students to understand the importance of therapeutic relationships and to develop the qualities that make the therapeutic relationships they build with clients the foundation of healing.

In these pages, students will learn how all skills arise from, and are directly related to, the counselor’s development. Student learning ranges from therapeutic listening and empathy to structuring sessions, from explaining counseling to clients and caregivers to providing wrap-around services, and ultimately to experiencing therapeutic relationships as the foundation of professional and personal growth.

Enhancing development with extensive online student and instructor materials, this new edition includes:

• New to this edition: recorded lectures by the first author that enable more fully experiential use of class time
• New to this edition: experiential classroom activity guides for each chapter, test banks, sample slides and syllabi, commonly used handouts, and other instructor guidance
• New session videos that bring chapters to life
• Extensive case studies and discussions on applying skills in school and agency settings
• Specific guidance on how to translate the abstract concepts of therapeutic relationships into concrete skill sets
• Exploration of counseling theories and tasks within and extending from core counseling skills.

This book is designed to help new counseling students understand, value, and implement therapeutic relationships that drive client change. Additionally, this book serves as a tool for experienced counselors feeling the need to renew and refocus their core skills of client connection, buy-in, and progress.

Jeff L. Cochran, PhD, is professor of counselor education in the department of counseling, human development and family science at the University of Tennessee. His background of counseling work experiences includes both school and agency settings across regions of the US and overseas.

Nancy H. Cochran, MA, CAS, is an adjunct faculty member at University of Tennessee, and a trainer and consultant of child-centered play therapy and filial family therapy. Her work includes experience as a school psychologist, counselor, and consultant in schools, agencies, and private practice across many regions of the US and overseas.