This is the fully updated second edition teaches the skills therapists need to understand and empathize with clients, develop strong therapeutic alliances, make accurate contextualized assessments, and facilitate positive change.

Empathy is fundamental to therapeutic change. This engaging and accessible text teaches students the clinical skills they will need as  therapists to communicate empathy and help clients change. Slattery and Park begin by outlining a framework for understanding how clients think—what meaning they give to difficult situations—and how those meaning systems are connected to cultural and other contextual factors. Chapters that follow discuss how their empathic framework can be factored into assessment, intervention, ending treatment, and even case reporting and ethical concerns. Throughout they emphasize that effective therapists possess not only strong observational, listening, and critical thinking skills, but that they also put their clients’ worldviews, meaning‑making, culture, and change processes at the heart of their practice.

This second edition features new case studies, research, and clinical applications, as well as a streamlined presentation that better mirrors the process of mental health treatment. With extensive case material, reflection questions, and other practical tools, the book will help budding mental health practitioners understand and empathize with a diverse range of clients, develop strong therapeutic alliances, make accurate assessments that reflect clients’ contexts and worldviews, and facilitate positive change.