Helping the Client
A Creative Practical Guide
- John Heron - South Pacific Centre for Human Inquiry, New Zealand, South Pacific Centre for Human Inquiry, Auckland
`The author rewards one with a wealth of interventions which are, as the subtitle suggests, very creative but also very practical' - Nursing Times
Helping the Client is the bestselling text which has long been used as the basis of interpersonal skills training in a wide range of professions from medicine to management. Based on John Heron's well-known six category model, the book presents different forms of helping behaviour which can be adopted by any practitioner working face-to-face with a client.
Drawing on his many years of experience as a therapist, consultant and teacher, the author explores the contexts and issues associated with these different forms of helping and, for each, describes a wide range of practical interventions for the practitioner to use. He examines the objectives of helping, states of personhood, the many ways in which helping can degenerate, the preparation and training of the practitioner, and examples of how the interventions can be used by different occupational groups.
Helping the Client is the Fifth Edition of the book originally entitled Six Category Intervention Analysis. Revised and enlarged throughout, with a new chapter on co-working, the book remains essential reading for the development of interpersonal skills, in counselling, management, health care, social work, youth and community work, education, and many other professions.
This book is essential reading on our interpersonal communication skills module and forms the core of the module. The book outlines the sic category analysis of counselling interventions providing students with details of each. Student feedback about the text has been positive
I was first introduced to Heron's 6CIA model in the early 1990's on a Trainers' Course. This was done using handouts about 6CIA. Over the years I used the 6 interventions, and still do. It was not until the late 90's that I came across some of the other topics that are included in this book - which I adopted and practiced.
I read the an earlier edition of this book in the 200's for the first time and started to recommend it to students studying communication and interpersonal skills.
This latest edition will be the version that I will be pointing my students towards.
In addition to its primary focus on therapeutic work, this book also has relevance to a number of other professions such as teachers and nurses. The included exercises for teaching and training are a welcome addition.
