The purpose of this book is to expose students of the helping professions, counselors, teachers, college professors, mental health workers, and social workers to the unique characteristics of representative American subgroups and to effectively assist these same professionals as they work with clients and/or students from these populations. These are grouped by race, gender, sexuality, age, physical limitations and lifestyle etc. The author of each chapter is both a trained helping professional and a member of the group in question. This unique combination of qualifications lends both an academic and a personal perspective to the understanding of the populations represented.

Contents:
Vacc, DeVaney, Brendel, Introduction. Fuller, Getting in Touch with your Heritage. Garrett, Counseling Native Americans. Westbrooks, African Americans: A Remarkable People. Chang, Counseling Asian Americans. Brendel, Sustaeta, Counseling Hispanic Americans. Nassar-McMillan, Counseling Arab-Americans. Williams, Counseling Multi-Racial Americans. Foster, May, Counseling Women from Feminist Perspectives. Daniel, Counseling Men. Holicky, People with Physical Disabilities. Connor, Counseling Sexual Minority Persons. Rayle, Myers, Counseling Older Persons. Minatrea, Kolbert, Counseling Incarcerated Clients. Wittmer, Counseling the Older Order Amish. Loesch, Burch-Ragan, Preparation for Helping Professionals Working with Diverse Populations.

This identifies 136 professional counselor work behaviors, clustered into five major areas, and provides a comprehensive research report on work behavior. It lists relative frequencies at which those work behaviors are performed, and relates frequency and importance of activities to demographic characteristics of professional counselors, stipulating by cluster areas those work behaviors that professional counselors practice.