Working with Challenging Youth: Lessons Learned Along the Way (Accelerated Development)

As many mental health professionals will attest, challenging youth have become one of the most difficult and troubling problems of our time, and one which will continue to grow into the next century. Despite this clear trend, there is a marked lack of research currently available to practitioners about effective, productive methods and models of intervention for working with challenging youth. Working with Challenging Youth was written to address and fulfill these needs.

Stressing the importance of self-awareness, genuineness, and empathy in effective counselors, this book will be a practical, reader-friendly guide through the pitfalls and problems that arise when working with challenging populations. Building on a solid theoretical base in Reality Therapy, Humanistic Philosophy, Solution-Focused therapy, MRI Brief Problem-focused therapy, and Systems theory, the book identifies specific considerations and strategies for counselors. The author postulates six philosophical principles of effective counselors and frames each chapter around a specific principle. In addition, it offers 47 lessons for working with at-risk youth and uses vignettes and studies to illustrate the principles under discussion.