ON BECOMING A COUNSELOR: A Basic Guide for Non-Professional Counselors

An unusually helpful, well-conceived guide for those priests, teachers, lawyers, and others with little psychological background who are often consulted as counselors. Kennedy is sensitive to the counseling relationship; he describes the most common difficulties and conflicts therapists face, cautioning against overinvolvement, unrealistic expectations, and gamesmanship--looking for Freudian slips instead of the person. He also characterizes the most frequently encountered symptoms and diagnoses (anxiety, depression, hysterical neurosis, phobias, obsessive-compulsive and antisocial personalities, paranoia) including secondary symptoms and secondary gains. In outlining these, he is especially alert to typical maneuvers: he warns who'll make progress early and then clam up, whose attendance will be spotty, whose privacy is most vulnerable, who'll make the most demands. He urges supervision of the counselor, referrals for severely disturbed patients. In addition, he identifies the authorities in each area and recommends books from accessible specialists such as Kubler-Ross, more general works by Fenichel and others. Remarkably he has no pet theory to proselytize, no ax to grind.