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Skills for Effective Counseling
Ebook
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- Length: 480 pages
- Published: February 24, 2026
- Imprint: IVP Academic
- ISBN: 9781514015001
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Available at all major retailers!
Master Effective Listening and Foundational Intervention for Counseling and Beyond
Anyone in a helping profession—including professional counselors, spiritual directors, pastoral counselors, chaplains, and lay leaders—needsto develop effective communication skills. But learning these skills is like learning a new language: it takes time and practice to communicate effectively, and lack of practice can lead to declining fluency in this new language.
For both beginning students and seasoned practitioners, Skills for Effective Counseling provides a biblically integrated approach to foundational counseling skills. It trains the reader to use crucial microskills such as perceiving, attending, empathicconnection, and authenticity.
Chapters include textbook features such as sample session dialogues, role plays, and a variety of exercises that will engage different learning styles. Interwoven throughout are special topics related to:
- clinical tips for using skills in real-world counseling settings
- biblical/theological applications
- current and seminal research on microskills
- multicultural counseling
- the relevance of skills to interpersonal relationships and broader ministry settings
This textbook and the accompanying IVP Instructor Resources include all of the activities and assignments that an instructor might need to execute a graduate, undergraduate, or lay course in foundational counseling skills. Professors teaching in CACREP-accredited professional counseling programs will be able to connect specific material in the textbook to the latest CACREP Standards.
This revised edition of Skills for Effective Counseling has been updated throughout to incorporate recent research and be even more useful for the classroom. This second edition includes a new chapter on video/online counseling, discussion of new approaches to biblical and theological integration, updated references, and expanded instructor resources.
About the Series
Christian Association for Psychological Studies (CAPS) Books explore how Christianity relates to mental health and behavioral sciences including psychology, counseling, social work, and marriage and family therapy in order to equip Christian clinicians to support the well-being of their clients.
"A quality training guide, offering in-depth counseling skills development from a Christian integration worldview. A must-read for the helping professions."
Roni R. Pruitt, professor of mission care graduate studies at Columbia International University and professor of international counseling postgraduate studies at Regent University
"The second edition of this very helpful and much-needed book for the effective training of Christian professional and lay counselors is now even better, including e-counseling. Highly recommended!"
Siang-Yang Tan, senior professor of clinical psychology at Fuller Theological Seminary and author of Counseling and Psychotherapy: A Christian Perspective
"Since its first publication, this textbook has been an invaluable companion in my work with both undergraduate and postgraduate seminary students in Sri Lanka. It is a practical and accessible resource for both instructors and students, which resonates well across cultures. Its updates—like e-counseling tools and refined rating scales—boost its relevance and impact. An essential resource for developing compassionate and skilled Christian counselors with a foundation of faith-based integration."
Dileeni Abraham, course leader at Colombo Theological Seminary
"As a professional therapist and educator, I find coming across this wonderful text—a superb resource for a wide audience—a distinct pleasure. This is a gem that reaches across audiences, from students to educators, lay counselors to professional counselors, and new clinicians to seasoned clinicians, and is therefore a rare find. The authors have put together a text that is both clinically and scripturally based. I appreciate its focus on relationship and empathy as a foundation for exploring counseling skills. This is a resource that is both readable and thorough and should be on the shelves of educators, students, and clinicians."
Daniel S. Sweeney, author, professor, and clinical director for the Graduate School of Counseling at George Fox University
This book includes free instructor resources that include additional ideas for activities inside and outside the classroom, a sample course schedule, templates for assignments, and supplemental videos with transcripts and detailed instructions for how to use them in a course setting.
CONTENTS
List of Figures and Tables
Preface to the Second Edition
Introduction
1. The Microskills Approach
Skill: The Skill of Learning New Skills
Skill: Identifying Targeted Skill Areas
2. The Person of the Counselor
Skill: Self-as-Instrument
Target 1: Establishing Relationship and Exploring
3. What Do You Notice?
Skill: Perceiving
4. Your Presence in the Room
Skill: Attending
5. Identifying the Pieces of the Story
Skill: Reflecting Content
6. Validating Emotion
Skill: Reflecting Feeling
7. Connecting Empathically
Skill: Empathic Reflection
8. E-Counseling and the Microskills
Skill: Adapting Microskills for Use in E-Counseling
Targets 2 and 3: Deepening and Growing
9. Zeroing In
Skill: Clarifying
10. Connecting Deeply
Skill: Intuitive Empathy
11. Expanding Therapeutic Options
Skill: Using Metaphors
12. Reflecting Apparent Discrepancies
Skill: Confronting
13. Using the Here and Now
Skill: Authenticity, Self-Disclosure, and Immediacy
14. Strategies for Growth
Skill: Implementing Change
15. Expanding the Counseling System
Skill: Thinking Systemically and Using the Relational System
16. Appreciating the Sacred
Skill: Attuning to the Holy Spirit and Spiritual Themes
Target 4: Consolidating and Ending
17. Endings and New Beginnings
Skill: Consolidating and Ending
Postscript
Appendix A: Answers to Chapter Exercises
Appendix B: Additional Learning Activities
Appendix C: Sample Small Group Role-Play Exercise
Appendix D: The Relationship Between Psychology and Religion
References
General Index
Scripture Index
