Common Presenting Issues in Psychotherapeutic Practice
- Barbara Douglas
- Pam James - Liverpool John Moores University, UK
With the support of expert contributors, Pam James and Barbara Douglas help your students to confidently do just that, proving a comprehensive introduction to the theory, research and practice behind a range of common presenting issues. Key issues covered include:
- Anxiety
- Depression
- Trauma
- Bipolar disorder
- Psychosis
- Eating disorders
- Borderline personality disorder
This book should be on the desk of every counselling, psychotherapy and counselling psychology trainee, and is recommended reading for other practitioners of health and social care working with these common presenting issues.
I enjoyed this topical and very accessible volume, which I think will appeal to our final year students, who are already engaging in therapeutic practice. It offers clear clinical input, with case study vignettes which help to bring theory to life.
Useful book with clear text
The authors successfully give a distinct counselling psychology perspective on the sorts of distress that we routinely see in our consulting rooms. It integrates theory and practice in a concise way that will be invaluable for trainees and qualified psychological therapists who have to negotiate the gaps between diagnostic criteria and clinical experience.
More useful for me as a teaching to remember what the students might not yet be aware of, and will be mentioning the book as a contextualising text if they want an overview, or 'feel' for the presenting issue.
This is quite an intriguing book in that it tries to bring together the medical and nonmedical models in looking at therapeutic approaches to common problems. The chapters are (ironically as acknowledged by the authors) titled according to the medical model. Each chapter then gives some historical context of the condition followed by a section on dilemmas and then a section on research and practice. These sections are usually written by different authors with quite different writing styles. I did get something out of reading this book but I found all the sections for each condition quite fragmented and selective. Having read it, it seemed quite bitty and I didn't feel it had achieved the integrative and holistic picture I was hoping for. On the plus side I felt it helped me understand the "conflict" between the medical and nonmedical models more clearly. Also, despite the fragmentation, it does give a more rounded picture of common presenting issues than the psychopathology books commonly consulted.
This book will be recommended for level 5 students who are preparing for a counselling placement.
There is a focused range of presenting issues that will be of some interest to counsellors and therefore this book will be considered a supplemental text to support student research.
This is very informative, and practical guidance for social workers, thinking of intervening when there are complex issues of emotional and mental health. This will inform your practice and interventions. This will give a deeper understanding of the processes, specific needs, and which approaches are most helpful and considerations you need to make. A great refresher to update knowledge.
Highly relevant and well-written
Clear and relevant. Excellent for this level of study
