Skills for Effective Counseling: A Faith-Based Integration

Elisabeth A. Nesbit Sbanotto · Heather Davediuk Gingrich · Fred C. Gingrich

Sep 2016 · InterVarsity Press

About this ebook

Anyone in a helping profession—including professional counselors, spiritual directors, pastoral counselors, chaplains and others—needs to develop effective communication skills. But learning these skills is like learning a new language: it takes time and practice to communicate effectively, and lack of practice can lead to the loss of one's ability to use this new language. Suitable for both beginning students and seasoned practitioners, Skills for Effective Counseling provides a biblically integrated approach to foundational counseling skills that trains the reader to use specific microskills. These skills include perceiving, attending, validating emotion and empathic connection. Chapters include textbook features such as sample session dialogues, role plays and a variety of both in-class and out-of-class exercises and reflection activities that will engage various learning styles. Strategically interwoven throughout the chapters are special topics related to:

• multicultural counseling
• biblical/theological applications
• current and seminal research related to microskills
• diagnostic and theoretical implications
• clinical tips for using skills in "real world" counseling settings
• the relevance of specific microskills to interpersonal relationships and broader ministry settings

This textbook and the accompanying IVP Instructor Resources include all of the activities and assignments that an instructor might need to execute a graduate, undergraduate or lay course in foundational counseling skills. Professors teaching within CACREP-accredited professional counseling programs will be able to connect specific material in the textbook to the latest CACREP Standards.

Christian Association for Psychological Studies (CAPS) Books explore how Christianity relates to mental health and behavioral sciences including psychology, counseling, social work, and marriage and family therapy in order to equip Christian clinicians to support the well-being of their clients.

About the author

Elisabeth A. Nesbit Sbanotto (PhD, University of Arkansas) is a consultant, speaker, writer, counselor, and educator. She is assistant professor of counseling at Denver Seminary and the coauthor with Craig Blomberg of Effective Generational Ministry. A licensed professional counselor, she maintains a private practice in Littleton, Colorado.

Heather Davediuk Gingrich is a counselor, scholar, teacher and former missionary. She is professor of counseling at Denver Seminary and maintains a small private practice working with complex trauma survivors. She is the author of Restoring the Shattered Self: A Christian Counselor's Guide to Complex Trauma. She began working in this field over twenty-five years ago in Canada, and continued to develop this specialization in the Philippines where she counseled, taught and completed her doctoral studies on complex trauma. She continues her international involvements with Care and Counsel International, as well as adjunct teaching at the Asia Graduate School of Theology in the Philippines and seminaries in Guatemala, Sri Lanka and Singapore. She also conducts mental health assessments for missionary candidates. Gingrich is a member of the International Society for the Study of Trauma and Dissociation (ISSTD), the Trauma Psychology Division of the American Psychological Association, and the American Association for Marriage and Family Therapy. Her scholarly work focuses on understanding and working with those who have histories of child abuse and other forms of relational trauma, particularly as they relate to issues of Christian faith and spirituality. She has been married to her husband Fred for twenty-ninie years and has two young adult sons.

Fred C. Gingrich is professor of counseling at Denver Seminary and served as division chair from 2007 to 2015. He practiced and taught in Ontario for fourteen years prior to directing MA and EdD degrees in counseling at seminaries in the Philippines.