Mobley, Jerry A. An Integrated Existential Approach to Counseling Theory and Practice

MOBLEY Jerry A. An Integrated Existential Approach to Counseling Theory and Practice. Lewiston, NY: The Edwin Mellen Pres 2005 296pp $10995 (h)

Seven popular counseling theories are at handed in this book and integrated into a meta-theory utilizing the public denominator of existentialism. The counseling profession is established on the foundational concepts of Viktor Frankl, Abraham Maslow, and Carl Roger and their embedded issues of freedom, personal power, choice, and meaning. In the 1960's and 1970's, three cognitive behavioral therapies systematized counseling into efficient point in dispute solving approaches that maintained sensitivity to clients' phenomenology: John Krumboltz's existentially-sensitive behaviorism, William Glasser's reality therapy, and Albert Ellis' Rational Emotive Behavioral Therapy (REBT) These processe require an active counselor and have many similarities to Alfred Adler's Individual Psychology Another active therapy, Frederick Perl's Gestalt therapy, allows counselors to address clients' polarities in their presentation of themselves. In each of these approaches, clients are empowered to make better choices to achieve their goals. Definition of the particular counseling skills that are involved in each approach and rubrics to measure counselor performance upon these skills are provided. While counselor behavior is operationally defined for each theory, this work integrates them together into a theoretical whole. The relationship with the client is more valued than any technique, and the counselor learns to perform an assortment of proven techniques.

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