Dr. James Hansen's vision and insight regarding the nature of the health care crisis evolved from positions of medical staff leadership, teaching, participating in the governance process, and developing a free clinic. These positions, together with his 35 years as a consulting physician, presented him with the opportunity to view physician behavior and its impact both on patients and upon health care in general. These observations crystallized his conclusion that the essence of successful health care springs from the physician-patient relationship. Dr. Hansen received his undergraduate degree from Vanderbilt University. He then attended the University of Southern California School of Medicine where he received his MD in 1965. His post graduate training in internal medicine occupied the next four years at the Los Angeles County-USC Medical Center. After a three year stint in the Army he returned to Wadsworth VA-UCLA for a fellowship in gastroenterology. Dr. Hansen is certified by the American Board of Internal Medicine, the American Board of Gastroenterology, a Fellow of the American College of Physicians, and a Clinical Professor of Internal Medicine at the University of California, Davis School of Medicine. He has been in private practice since 1973. He was appointed to the Mercy Healthcare Board of Trust in 1988, serving in that capacity for three years. He served as chief-of-staff for both American River Hospital and Mercy San Juan Hospital from 1990-1993 and was actively engaged in consolidating the medical. staffs of those two hospitals which merged in 1993. He was the chairman of the Physician Leadership Group for the 5-hospital Mercy Healthcare Sacramento system from 1995-1998 during a period of hospital redesign. Dr. Hansen was actively involved in teaching at UC Davis, School of Medicine for nearly 20 years as a voluntary clinical faculty person. In 1994 he helped develop a free clinic in Sacramento and became its medical director until moving to Maui in 2001. Dr. Hansen has been in the private practice of gastroenterology in Maui since 2001. Dr. Hansen's unique perspective as a practicing physician, physician leader, and medical educator provides the perspective and passion for his quest of the root cause and cure of the health care crisis. This book offers a solution for the health care crisis, which focuses on the need for a grass level approach and revolution led by the citizenry.

To become a counselor or psychotherapist, one must learn a confusing and conceptually disconnected array of theories, techniques, and ideologies. For instance, CBT, humanistic, and psychodynamic interventions have virtually opposite conceptual foundations, but they are all used to help clients. What principles, however, connect the various movements, trends, and methods of helping? In Philosophical Issues in Counseling and Psychotherapy: Encounters with Four Questions about Knowing, Effectiveness, and Truth, James T. Hansen asks and proposes beginning resolutions to four fundamental philosophical questions about knowing, effectiveness, and truth that are designed to unite and give meaning to diverse and seemingly contradictory models of helping: What does it mean to know a client? What makes counseling effective? Are truths discovered or created in the counseling relationship? Should counselors abandon the idea of truth? Although these questions are complex, Hansen provides plain language answers that make the material accessible to readers who have no formal education in philosophy. Furthermore, he addresses these questions in the context of his personal struggles to find meaning-making the book an engaging and highly enjoyable reading experience.

Humanism is considered by many to be the foundation for the values and practices of counseling. This book explores and presents current counseling issues from a humanistic perspective, providing a valuable resource for counselors and therapists seeking effective approaches, founded on humanistic principles, to use in their practice. Each chapter describes the significance of a specific counseling issue, reviews the humanistic literature on this issue, discusses the theoretical model provided by a humanistic perspective, and concludes with applications and implications for practitioners. Situations considered include, among others, marital/couples counseling, multicultural counseling, and healing trauma, all of which have been shown to benefit from the use of humanistic approaches. Applications in educational settings, such as addressing school violence, working with at-risk youth, and counseling in college and university settings, are also discussed. The book concludes with a section on uses of humanistic approaches in counselor education and training. After reading this book, practitioners will be inspired to advocate for counseling's holistic and empowering approach to helping all individuals across the lifespan.

The creation of meaning is a central feature of human life. The full spectrum of experience, from joyful, devoted living to unbearable psychological suffering, is orchestrated by the meanings that people endorse and create. Meaning Systems and Mental Health Culture: Critical Perspectives on Contemporary Counseling and Psychotherapy examines the intersection of meaning systems, mental health culture, and counseling and psychotherapy. By viewing mental health care through the lenses of culture and history, James T. Hansen argues that a defining element of mental health culture, throughout various eras, is the relative value placed on meaning systems. Contemporary mental health care, with its idealization of symptom-based diagnostics, biological reductionism, and the medical model, severely devalues meaning systems. This devaluation has led modern counselors and psychotherapists to largely abandon the factors that should be central to their work. Meaning Systems and Mental Health Culture weaves together empirical, historical, cultural, and philosophical perspectives to raise awareness of the need for counseling and psychotherapy to revalue meaning systems, even while operating within a culture that disregards them.

Dr. James Hansen's vision and insight regarding the nature of the health care crisis evolved from positions of medical staff leadership, teaching, participating in the governance process, and developing a free clinic. These positions, together with his 35 years as a consulting physician, presented him with the opportunity to view physician behavior and its impact both on patients and upon health care in general. These observations crystallized his conclusion that the essence of successful health care springs from the physician-patient relationship. Dr. Hansen received his undergraduate degree from Vanderbilt University. He then attended the University of Southern California School of Medicine where he received his MD in 1965. His post graduate training in internal medicine occupied the next four years at the Los Angeles County-USC Medical Center. After a three year stint in the Army he returned to Wadsworth VA-UCLA for a fellowship in gastroenterology. Dr. Hansen is certified by the American Board of Internal Medicine, the American Board of Gastroenterology, a Fellow of the American College of Physicians, and a Clinical Professor of Internal Medicine at the University of California, Davis School of Medicine. He has been in private practice since 1973. He was appointed to the Mercy Healthcare Board of Trust in 1988, serving in that capacity for three years. He served as chief-of-staff for both American River Hospital and Mercy San Juan Hospital from 1990-1993 and was actively engaged in consolidating the medical. staffs of those two hospitals which merged in 1993. He was the chairman of the Physician Leadership Group for the 5-hospital Mercy Healthcare Sacramento system from 1995-1998 during a period of hospital redesign. Dr. Hansen was actively involved in teaching at UC Davis, School of Medicine for nearly 20 years as a voluntary clinical faculty person. In 1994 he helped develop a free clinic in Sacramento and became its medical director until moving to Maui in 2001. Dr. Hansen has been in the private practice of gastroenterology in Maui since 2001. Dr. Hansen's unique perspective as a practicing physician, physician leader, and medical educator provides the perspective and passion for his quest of the root cause and cure of the health care crisis. This book offers a solution for the health care crisis, which focuses on the need for a grass level approach and revolution led by the citizenry.

The creation of meaning is a central feature of human life. The full spectrum of experience, from joyful, devoted living to unbearable psychological suffering, is orchestrated by the meanings that people endorse and create. Meaning Systems and Mental Health Culture: Critical Perspectives on Contemporary Counseling and Psychotherapy examines the intersection of meaning systems, mental health culture, and counseling and psychotherapy. By viewing mental health care through the lenses of culture and history, James T. Hansen argues that a defining element of mental health culture, throughout various eras, is the relative value placed on meaning systems. Contemporary mental health care, with its idealization of symptom-based diagnostics, biological reductionism, and the medical model, severely devalues meaning systems. This devaluation has led modern counselors and psychotherapists to largely abandon the factors that should be central to their work. Meaning Systems and Mental Health Culture weaves together empirical, historical, cultural, and philosophical perspectives to raise awareness of the need for counseling and psychotherapy to revalue meaning systems, even while operating within a culture that disregards them.