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Counseling Persons with Parkinson's Disease offers a glimpse into life with chronic illness--Parkinson's or otherwise--and it employs a unique approach to counseling those who have it. The author is in a unique position to discuss this because, in addition to receiving his own diagnosis in 2016, he's taught counselors how to engage patients living with chronic illnesses for years. All at once informative, realistic, humorous, and hopeful, this book will guide clinicians who give counsel, educators who teach counseling, people supporting someone else, and anyone living with a chronic illness.
List of contents
- Foreword by Robert J. Wicks
- Preface
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction
- Chapter 1: Beginning
- Chapter 2: Parkinson's Disease: The Basics
- Chapter 3: Worrying
- Chapter 4: Living with an Illness Called Parkinson's
- Chapter 5: Seeing
- Chapter 6: Illness, Transformation, and Resilience
- Chapter 7: Hiding
- Chapter 8: Counseling Persons with Parkinson's: Phase One
- Chapter 9: Opening
- Chapter 10: Counseling Persons with Parkinson's: Phases Two and Three
- Epilogue
- Index
About the author
Allan Hugh Cole Jr. is Professor and Senior Associate Dean for Academic Affairs in the Steve Hicks School of Social Work at the University of Texas at Austin. He is also, by courtesy, Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences in the Dell Medical School at UT. Cole serves on the Board of Directors at Power for Parkinson's, moderates PD Wise, serves as a community advocate for ParkinsonsDisease.net, and is a guest contributor for the Michael J. Fox Foundation's Team Fox Blog. He is the author or editor of ten books, and he has written and published many chapters, articles, and reviews in volumes and journals related to social work, counseling, spirituality, and the psychology of religion. He serves on the editorial board for the Journal of Spirituality and Religion in Social Work: Social Thought.
Summary
What is it like to live with a chronic illness? How can counselors support those living with one? Allan Hugh Cole Jr. offers answers to these two questions and so many more in Counseling Persons with Parkinson's Disease. In ten succinct chapters, Cole offers a glimpse into life with Parkinson's and presents an insightful approach to counseling someone living with a chronic illness.
Cole was diagnosed with Parkinson's Disease in 2016, and--though it hardly happened overnight--he has since discovered a new passion and drive for life. A teacher of social workers and counselors for many years, Cole has unique insight into chronic illness and the care required to help someone diagnosed with one. He delves into the importance of accepting a chronic illness and how this can create an opportunity for personal transformation, newfound meaning, and rejuvenated purpose.
In addition to emphasizing the importance of self-reflection, he also offers evidence-based approaches to counseling. Cole's approaches to counseling draw on task-centered social work practice. Throughout the book, he engages with five purposeful actions tied to principles of constructivism, Aristotelian thought, American pragmatism, and theories of interpretation (hermeneutics). At once informative, realistic, humorous, and hopeful, this is a thoughtful guide for clinicians who give counsel, educators who teach counseling, people supporting someone else, and anyone living with a chronic illness.
Additional text
Counseling Persons with Parkinson's Disease is a book that is a necessary addition to one's professional library. It is also a volume that patients can read, reflect upon, underline, and go back to when they feel a bit disoriented by what they are going through. As I relaxed with, and reflected upon, its content and spirit I thought to myself: This is what sound psychosocial information should be all about—simple, heart-felt, informative, and prepared in order to make life better for those in pain.
