Language and Narratives in Counseling and Psychotherapy: Language Use in Counseling and Psychotherapy

This highly accessible, step-by-step guide for practicing psychotherapists, counselors and advanced students, describes how to incorporate principles of narrative and language-based approaches in counseling and psychotherapy.

In a concise, straightforward format designed to facilitate student learning, each chapter describes a set of related concepts and practices that encompass counselor/student dialogues, and provides an in-depth discussion of each principle and practice using concrete examples and findings from empirical research. The book also discusses the theoretical and philosophical foundations of narrative therapies, including developments in emotion science and word use research, and their translation to effective practice.

• Provides explicit techniques for putting the principles of narrative and language-based therapies into practice
• Presents concepts in the format of essential guidelines, building from basic ideas to more complex and advanced principles
• Contains therapist/client dialogues to foster additional learning
• Presents narrative concepts as an umbrella theory for understanding similarities of effective therapists from differential theoretical orientations
• Appropriate for use in advanced psychology and practicum courses in counseling, psychology, and social work, and for practitioners interested in using narrative approaches