Online Counselling and Guidance Skills: A Practical Resource for Trainees and Practitioners

Counsellors and other professionals who provide emotional support and guidance are increasingly working online.The difference between online and face-to-face interaction with clients is vast and practitioners need to equip themselves with specialist knowledge and skills to ensure that they are being effective. "Online Counselling and Guidance Skills" is the first book to deal with the practicalities of this mode of working. It looks at how practitioners need to adapt their basic counselling skills to the online environment and guides them through the process of setting up, defining and maintaining a working relationship with a client within professional, ethical and legal boundaries.Case studies and extracts from online sessions show how the skills are put into practice, while practical exercises and points for further consideration help readers to develop their own knowledge and skills. Until now, books and articles have generally focused on the therapeutic work done by counsellors online. However, this book addresses people who use counselling skills in a wide range of contexts; including counselling, education, mental health, social care and careers guidance.