Skills for Effective Counseling: A Faith-Based Integration

Master the Art of Communication for Counseling and Beyond Anyone in a helping profession—including professional counselors, spiritual directors, pastoral counselors, chaplains, and lay leaders—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 declining fluency in this new language. For both beginning students and seasoned practitioners, Skills for Effective Counseling provides a biblically integrated approach to foundational counseling skills. It trains the reader to use crucial microskills such as perceiving, attending, empathic connection, and authenticity. Chapters include textbook features such as sample session dialogues, role plays, and a variety of exercises that will engage different learning styles. Interwoven throughout are special topics related to:

- clinical tips for using skills in real-world counseling settings - biblical/theological applications - current and seminal research on microskills - multicultural counseling - the relevance of skills 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 in CACREP-accredited professional counseling programs will be able to connect specific material in the textbook to the latest CACREP Standards. This revised edition of Skills for Effective Counseling has been updated throughout to incorporate recent research and be even more useful for the classroom. This second edition includes a new chapter on video/online counseling, discussion of new approaches to biblical and theological integration, updated references, and expanded instructor resources. About the Series 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.

© 2026 IVP Academic (Ebook): 9781514015001

Release date

Ebook: 24 February 2026