Includes bibliographical references and index.

Counseling individuals with a life-threatening illness -- Historical perspectives on dying and illness -- Effective professional caregivers : seven sensitivities -- The skilled counselor -- Responses to life-threatening illness -- Understanding the illness experience -- The prediagnostic phase : understanding the road before -- Counseling clients through crisis of diagnosis -- Counseling clients in the chronic phase of illness -- Counseling clients in recovery -- Counseling clients in the terminal phase -- Counseling families during an life-threatening illness.

This title is a comprehensive and holistic guide for counsellors, social workers, and health care professionals as they assist clients experiencing a serious illness. The book builds on a model developed by the author and based upon earlier work by Avery Weisman and E.M. Patterson.