Client Assessment

Book excerpt: `This chunky little book is packed with interesting approaches to the currently fashionable area of client assessment.... This is a book for any counsellor or counsellor trainee′s shelf, a necessary reference for the sound professional′ - Counselling News `The comprehensive series of essays... is a timely contribution.... This book is about being professional and effective... a valuable multimodal life inventory for use with clients is provided′ - Counselling, The Journal of The British Association for Counselling What information will help you assess the therapeutic needs of a client? Could you identify a suicidal client? How can you tell whether or not you are working with appropriate clients? Answering these and other questions, this book sheds light on a crucial, but often neglected, area of counselling. The authors provide clear guidelines, backed up by practice points, which clarify the assessment, monitoring and evaluation of clients. The book adopts a broad approach, transcending specific counselling theories and covering the main issues involved at key stages in the client/counsellor relationship - from the initial contact, through monitoring of the therapeutic programme, to ending the counselling process. Areas examined include: assessing the best type of therapy for each client; identifying the client′s therapeutic goals; history taking; referral; and evaluating goal achievement. Gladeanna McMahon is presenter of the ITV programme Dial A Mum.