Since first publication, Addiction Counselling has come to be regarded by Australasian practitioners and students in this discipline as a core text.
For this second edition:
- All original chapters have been thoroughly reviewed and updated.
- The focus has broadened from counselling clients with alcohol and drug issues to counselling clients with any addictive behaviour: principles and treatment approaches described are applicable to difficulties clients have with gambling, eating, sexual behaviour, or internet use.
- Coverage of co-occurring mental-health issues has been much expanded.
The book opens with an outline of addictive behaviours and a generic model of change. Authoritative coverage is then provided of the content of addiction counselling, the process of working with addiction clients, and counselling clients with a dual diagnosis. Content includes basic addiction-counselling strategies, such as motivational interviewing and relapse prevention, and strategies for general issues, such as suicide prevention, emotion management, anger management, assertion, and grief. The process section examines interactions between clients and counsellors, showing how early experiences shape client responses to counsellors and to others, and demonstrating how a counsellor can respond in powerfully healing ways, enhancing client retention and progress. The final section shows how evidence-based cognitive behavioural-treatment strategies can be integrated with interpersonal-process work to address co-occurring addiction and mental-health issues, with chapters on trauma syndromes, panic disorder, generalised anxiety disorder, social anxiety disorder, and depression. Each of these chapters concludes with a case study that integrates information provided throughout the book. The book focuses on individual counselling; group work is not covered.
Clinicians whose role includes counselling clients with addiction problems and students who wish to work in the field will find the book invaluable. |
