In terms of print resources designed to help individual clients navigate the wide range of counselling and psychotherapy options, this book is at or near the top of the list. Concise, comprehensible, and practical, it is probably one of the best investments a prospective client can make prior to beginning counselling.

‘Existential Counselling & Psychotherapy in Practice’ offers a remarkably accessible introduction to existential work which will be of interest both to practitioners and to clients evaluating this approach.

This book provides an excellent overview of the primary theoretical approaches to counselling and psychotherapy as practised in the United Kingdom. Covering history, theory, primary client set and strengths and weaknesses for each of thirteen different approaches, the book makes an excellent starting point for exploring different schools of thought in more detail.

Regarded as the textbook of research on the effectiveness of counselling and psychotherapy, this volume is a favourite of practitioners who approach their work in an empirical spirit. While tracing research developments gradually as individual papers appear remains an important part of being well-informed about the field, the reviews and meta-analyses offered in this massive volume provide a very efficient entree into the research literature and a simple way of understanding the primary themes and tentative conclusions emerging from empirical research across the world.

For over four decades, the message from psychotherapy outcome research has been getting clearer: the theories and techniques of professional therapy have very little to do with therapeutic success.

If a counsellor could only buy one book on medical and psychiatric issues as they relate to the practice of counselling, I believe this should be it. Every counsellor and psychotherapist should inform themselves to at least a basic degree about the broader medical and psychiatric issues which may impact upon their clients’ lives and well-being, and this book provides the best start I know for doing exactly that.

With an entertaining and thought-provoking style, ‘Psychology and the Reflective Counsellor’ brings basic, straightforward knowledge from current psychology to counselling.