Book Reviews

Handbook of Counseling Psychology

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The second edition of the Handbook of Counseling Psychology, edited by Brown and Lent, is a substantial book. It attempts to define the field of counseling psychology in terms of four core content areas. Obviously, the choice of contributors affects the presentation of the content. A book of this sort cannot be all things for all seasons. On the whole, this book seems best suited for an introductory graduate course in counseling psychology.

Even though it is well-written and organized, surprisingly, little of the text is behavioral in nature. This would have been fairly simple to correct by extending the content of the existing chapters to include behavioral thinking.

Part One, on Professional and Scientific Issues consists of six chapters that are fairly traditional in terms of content, dealing with psychometric theory, research methods, philosophy of science, an extrapolation of basic research to counseling psychology, and the concept of supervision as the primary means of teaching and learning. Each chapter provides a fairly good overview of the subject at hand. For instance, the chapter on psychometric theory describes the various theories of trait organization, defines and describes validity and reliability, and ends with a discussion of how to develop a valid test. It would have been enhanced if the author had extended

the content into the realm of norm referenced vs. criterion referenced evaluation and included behavioral objectives.

Part Two consists of six chapters that deal with developmental content, health promotion and disease prevention across the life span. The chapters on racial, ethnic, cultural variables and gender issues seem misplaced. Part Three deals with career and educational counseling.

Part Four deals with common problems for which clients seek counseling. It begins with a very interesting chapter by Michael J. Mahoney and Kathleen McCray Patterson on the authors’ view on how the field is changing. Following this, there are chapters on the common complaint areas; depression, anxiety management, social interaction problems and substance abuse. These chapters are the only ones that are behavioral in nature. They are well done in terms of thoroughness and reflect current trends and methodologies.

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MICHAEL PALMER