Consultation Skills for Mental Health Professionals (PDF)

Consultation interventions are an increasingly popular alternative
to clinical practice, allowing the practitioner to interact with
and affect many different individuals and organizations. This type
of work challenges mental health professionals, drawing on all the
skills and resources they may possess, yet also offers some of the
greatest rewards and opportunities for service.

Filled with numerous case examples and checklists,
Consultation Skills for Mental Health Professionals contains
a wealth of information on this important area of practice. It
provides a comprehensive source for working with a diverse
clientele in a variety of settings, discussing both traditional
mental health consultation models and the fast-growing field of
organizational consulting.

The guide is divided into four parts:

* Individual-Level Consulting Issues takes up individual career
assessment and counseling, along with how organizational contexts
affect individual jobs; leadership, management, and supervision;
executive assessment, selection, interviewing, and development; and
executive coaching.

* Consulting to Small Systems discusses working with teams and
groups; planning and conducting training and teambuilding;
diversity in the workplace and in consultation.

* Consulting to Large Systems covers how to work with large
organizations, including organizational structure, terms, culture,
and concepts, as well as processes such as change and resistance;
how to assess organizations, and the characteristics of healthy and
dysfunctional workplaces; and issues involved in organizational
intervention.

* Special Consulting Topics include issues such as the practical
aspects of running a consulting practice; the skills required for
successful clinical consultation; consultation services for special
populations; and crisis consultation, including critical incident
stress management, psychological first aid, disaster recovery,
media communication, and school crisis response.