José F. Domene – författare

The transition to adulthood involves, for most individuals, moving from school to work, establishment of long-term relationships, possibly parenting, and a number of other psychosocial transformations. Now more than ever, there is a concern within popular and research literature about children growing up too soon or too late or failing to realize changes associated with being adult. With this in mind, the book intends to answer a series of timely questions in regard to transition to adulthood and propose a wholly new approach to counseling that enables youth to engage fully in their lives and achieve their best.

Active Transition to Adulthood: A New Approach for Counseling will discuss the authors’ work on the transition to adulthood (including early and late adolescence) from an entirely innovative perspective – action theory. Over a period of 10-15 years the authors have collected substantial data on adolescents and youth in transition, and will present an approach to counseling based on these data and cases.  The action theory perspective in which the authors have grounded their work addresses the intentional, goal-directed behavior of persons and groups that is expressed through particular actions, longer-term projects, and life-encompassing careers. In this book, both transition to adulthood and counseling will be covered in the language of goal-directed action. In this way both transition and counseling reflect and capture the action, projects, and careers in which families, youth, and clients are engaged and use to construct on-going identity and other narratives.

Engaging in action is at the heart of our most meaningful experiences. And given the fast-paced, goal-driven nature of modern society, engagement in action is also central to how we perceive ourselves. Action has traditionally been viewed as an end product of the counseling process, but now a bold new redefinition makes counseling not only a driver of action, but an action in itself.

Counseling and Action couples a timely update on the multiple roles of action in counseling with an action-based framework for enhancing progress between client and professional. Grounded in the core concepts of contextual action theory as well as key aspects of counseling (e.g., identity, intentionality, emotion), the book explicates an approach that is responsive to client complexities and the larger social conditions that frame them. Expert-penned chapters apply theory to practice, illustrating levels of engagement in action as counselor and client negotiate goals and work toward their realization. And an especially useful section offers guidelines for intervening with specific populations and addressing particular issues. Among the topics covered:

With its forceful argument for a quantum leap in both theory and practice, Counseling and Action is transformative reading for professionals, educators, and graduate students in social work, psychotherapy, psychology, and counseling.

This book presents and integrates innovative ways in which the disciplines of school, clinical, and counseling psychology conceptualize and approach mental health assessment, prevention, and intervention for promoting child and youth well-being. It describes a synthesized model of clinical reasoning across school, clinical, and counseling psychology that demonstrates how decisions are made with respect to assessment, prevention, and intervention across situational contexts to ensure successful outcomes for children and youth. In addition, the volume examines theoretical,empirical, and practical frameworks and methods with respect to addressing the mental health and well-being needs of children and adolescents within and across school, clinical, and counseling psychology disciplines. In addition, the book presents transformative, constructivist, multicultural, innovative, and evidenced-based approaches for working with children and youth as well as their families relative to the identification of mental health concerns, enhanced service system integration, social justice and advocacy.

This book is an essential resource for researchers, clinicians, therapists, practitioners, and graduate students in clinical , counselling,and school psychology, social work, educational psychology, child and adolescent psychiatry, developmental psychology, pediatrics and all interrelated disciplines.