The value of this text lies in its emphasis on application, the unusual nature of some of the topics and the concise summaries of more orthodox ones. Each chapter is concise and up-to-date, with guides and authoritative summaries to draw out practical implications for health professionals. The guide includes material on counselling supervision; psychological type; coping with violence; preparing children for court; evaluating the effectivness of counselling and presenting the evaluation to managers; making sense of discourse analysis and case studies. The summaries include the issue of counselling versus counselling skills; infertility; divorce; being a step-parent; child sexual abuse; stereotypes in mid-life and old age; social context; psychopathology and evaluating attempts at AIDS prevention.