Essential Counseling Skills: Practice and Application Guide was written to amplify 42 meaning-rich words: “Studies that provide an understanding of the counseling process in a multicultural society, including all of the following: (a) an orientation to wellness and prevention as desired counseling goals, (b) counselor characteristics and behaviors that influence helping processes, and (c) essential interviewing and counseling skills” (Council for Accreditation of Counseling and Related Educational Programs, 2009, Standards II, 5 a, b, and c). These words appear under a variety of counselor education course syllabi titles such as prepracticum, practicum, orientation to counseling, and techniques of counseling: Courses addressing these standards are often corequisite with classes addressing ethics, assessment, and theories of counseling. These courses are prerequisites for internships. The skills within the standards are reinforced, expanded, and honed in advanced courses such as group counseling, family counseling, and consultation.

During our combined 50 years as counselor educators, we developed and persistently revised materials to supplement text books, professional journal articles, and class activities for applied classes such as prepracticum and practicum. We developed written activities with which counselors-in-training could apply knowledge and skills and experiment with responses they might use when working with clients. We ultimately arrived at a sequence of activities that seemed to facilitate mastery of essential skills so the graduate students with whom we worked were adequately prepared to meet their first clients. When we retired a few years ago, we looked at the materials we had created and asked, “What shall we do with all of this?” We decided to develop the materials in a way that could be shared with others.

Essential Counseling Skills: Practice and Application Guide is a synthesis of the presentations, activities, and exercises we accrued since 1980. Our goal in preparing the text has been to share a versatile, efficient, and practical resource that can be used in conjunction with textbooks, journal articles, and instructor-led experiences—just as we used the materials within it.

We have experienced our own career development as a journey. We have been fortunate to cross paths with many guides along the way—professors, supervisors, authors, workshop presenters, and colleagues. The power of that metaphor intensified for us as we walked alongside hundreds of amazing students working toward their master's and doctoral degrees. The journey unfolded with new vistas at each turn. [Page xi]Although we planned some of those turns, others came by surprise. We learned with and from our students. We continue to value lifelong learning as our journey continues into retirement and we write a column for a local newspaper titled “Thoughts Along Life's Journey.” Thus, Essential Counseling Skills: Practice and Application Guide is conceptualized as a series of tours along that journey.

We begin with an invitation and proposed itinerary. Our role is to guide the tour; however, those who participate are encouraged to follow their own paths as appropriate. We include orientation material, structure activities, and encourage reflection throughout. We included illustrations and activities based on clients with whom we worked. Recommended resources are provided at the conclusion of each tour; however, we emphasize that resources for contemporary counselors are abundant and readily available.

We are among the last cohorts of professional counselors who had opportunities to learn directly from pioneers such as Carl Rogers, Victor Frankl, Virginia Satir, Murray Bowen, Rollo May, Albert Ellis, B. F. Skinner, Jay Haley, Steve de Shazer, and Insoo Kim Berg. We remember when the American Counseling Association was called the American Personnel and Guidance Association. We hold in high regard those early pioneers who developed and expanded theories. We admire early leaders who had the vision to form an association for professional counselors. We respect and appreciate contemporary scholars and leaders who carry the profession now and will ultimately hand it to the generation that follows them. We hope that we captured, shared, and inspired a historical perspective without losing sight of the current and future pictures. We love the profession of counseling and remain in awe as we think about the important work counselors do.

Essential Counseling Skills: Practice and Application Guide is a revision of a parallel text, Counseling Children and Adolescents in Schools: Practice and Application Guide. The first text was written exclusively for school counselors and school psychologists; it was a complementary text for Counseling Children and Adolescents in Schools. Essential Counseling Skills: Practice and Application Guide is intended for diverse counselors-in-training, whether they plan to work in community settings, hospitals, or schools. We adopted and revised materials from the original text. We added sections that are important for counselors who work with clients in a variety of contexts.

Results of research continue to support the importance of counselor–client relationships, and their contributions to outcomes. Thus, throughout the text, we emphasized factors that influence therapeutic alliances. We have observed that counselors-in-training sometimes struggle with the process of applying theory to practice. Thus, we have given special attention to the conceptualization—the task of integrating theories and selected appropriate interventions in response to clients' unique needs. A critical factor in all work with clients is “the person of the counselor,” which is another primary focus of Essential Counseling Skills: Practice and Application Guide.

We dedicate Essential Counseling Skills: Practice and Application Guide to our many former students who embraced excellence and became amazing counselors and counselor educators—as close as four blocks from our home and as far as Korea, Taiwan, and Israel. You did everything we asked and so much more! You paid us the highest set of compliments by outdoing us!