Therapy and Counseling
Recent Titles in Q&A Health Guides
Living Green: Your Questions Answered
Amy Hackney Blackwell
Sexually Transmitted Diseases: Your Questions Answered
Paul Quinn
Mindfulness and Meditation: Your Questions Answered
Blaise Aguirre
Anxiety and Panic Disorders: Your Questions Answered
Daniel Zwillenberg
Substance Abuse: Your Questions Answered
Romeo Vitelli
Eating Disorders: Your Questions Answered
Justine J. Reel
Food Allergies and Sensitivities: Your Questions Answered
Alice C. Richer
Obesity: Your Questions Answered
Christine L. B. Selby
Birth Control: Your Questions Answered
Paul Quinn
THERAPY AND COUNSELING
Your Questions Answered
Christine L. B. Selby
Q&A Health Guides
Copyright 2019 by ABC-CLIO, LLC
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, except for the inclusion of brief quotations in a review, without prior permission in writing from the publisher.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Selby, Christine L. B., author.
Title: Therapy and counseling : your questions answered / Christine L. B. Selby.
Description: Santa Barbara, CA: Greenwood, an Imprint of ABC-CLIO, LLC, [2019] | Series: Q&A health guides | Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2018056518 (print) | LCCN 2018057916 (ebook) | ISBN 9781440861680 (ebook) | ISBN 9781440861673 (print: alk. paper)
Subjects: LCSH: PsychotherapyMiscellanea. | CounselingMiscellanea.
Classification: LCC RC480.5 (ebook) | LCC RC480.5 .S4168 2019 (print) | DDC 616.89/14dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018056518
ISBN: 978-1-4408-6167-3 (print)
978-1-4408-6168-0 (ebook)
23 22 21 20 19 1 2 3 4 5
This book is also available as an eBook.
Greenwood
An Imprint of ABC-CLIO, LLC
ABC-CLIO, LLC
147 Castilian Drive
Santa Barbara, California 93117
www.abc-clio.com
This book is printed on acid-free paper
Manufactured in the United States of America
This book is dedicated to all those who seek to better their lives by taking care of both their mind and body.
Contents
All of us have questions about our health. Is this normal? Should I be doing something differently? Whom should I talk to about my concerns? And our modern world is full of answers. Thanks to the Internet, theres a wealth of information at our fingertips, from forums where people can share their personal experiences to Wikipedia articles to the full text of medical studies. But finding the right information can be an intimidating and difficult tasksome sources are written at too high a level, others have been oversimplified, while still others are heavily biased or simply inaccurate.
Q&A Health Guides address the needs of readers who want accurate, concise answers to their health questions, authored by reputable and objective experts, and written in clear and easy-to-understand language. This series focuses on the topics that matter most to young adult readers, including various aspects of physical and emotional well-being as well as other components of a healthy lifestyle. These guides will also serve as a valuable tool for parents, school counselors, and others who may need to answer teens health questions.
All books in the series follow the same format to make finding information quick and easy. Each volume begins with an essay on health literacy and why it is so important when it comes to gathering and evaluating health information. Next, the top five myths and misconceptions that surround the topic are dispelled. The heart of each guide is a collection of questions and answers, organized thematically. A selection of five case studies provides real-world examples to illuminate key concepts. Rounding out each volume are a directory of resources, glossary, and index. It is our hope that the books in this series will not only provide valuable information but will also help guide readers toward a lifetime of healthy decision making.
Many thanks to all those at ABC-CLIO who helped get this book to the version you are reading now. Special thanks to Maxine Taylor for offering me this project and for all of the invaluable feedback she provided me along the way.
Given the topic of this book, I would like to thank all of my professors and supervisors who helped illuminate for me the power of psychotherapy and instill in me the importance of ensuring that I am the best version of myself when helping others become the best version of themselves. And I would like to thank the myriad patients I have worked with over the years who have and continue to challenge me intellectually and interpersonally. Without them this version of this book would not exist.
Finally, and as always, I would like to thank my husband and my sons. This book would not exist without their support. Although my sons have a ways to go before they definitively decide what career path they will take, they both have expressed an interest in studying psychology. This has led me to view psychology through the lens of someone just learning about it and discovering how psychology can offer answers to many of lifes more difficult questions and solutions to many of lifes most challenging problems. My husband has been an exceptional business partner and consultant helping me see my life and my work from a different perspective. More important, he has been the kind of life partner who has, by his very existence, made me a better person than I was before I met him.
This book covers many questions I get asked as a practicing psychotherapist and as a college professor teaching in the field of psychology. There are also many questions that I think more people would benefit from asking before deciding on a counselor or therapist. The mental health field is broad, in that there are clinicians who have varying types and amounts of training. This can, in many ways, directly impact whether a particular counselor or therapist will be a good fit for a particular patient.
Licensed counselors and therapists have not only different types of education but also different letters after their name (e.g., PhD, PsyD, LMFT, LCSW), which can make figuring out which counselor or therapist to work with confusing at best. In addition, even those with the same letters after their name may practice in very different ways. Some may approach mental health issues from a solution-focused perspective, whereas others may take an insight-oriented perspective. Knowing which among the myriad approaches to treatment will work best for you can be difficult to determine.
The objective of this book is to answer common questions that many people ask prior to setting up an appointment (e.g., how much does therapy cost?) as well as other questions that are important to know the answer to but may not cross the mind of someone looking for a counselor or therapist (e.g., do I need to see a counselor who has a particular specialty?). Specifically, the book starts with discussing myths associated with counseling and therapy and then specifically answers questions related to deciding whether you need counseling or therapy and how therapy works, questions about different types of therapy, questions about how to find a counselor and issues related to what happens once youre in counseling, and questions about how to access health insurance when you get mental health services. Finally, the book ends with case examples of people seeking or in therapy, a glossary of terms, and directory of resources that may be helpful to readers.