lay psychology books as an aid to counseling

Counseling literature is replete with research articles and position papers that attempt to draw sharp dichotomies between various counseling theories and techniques. Yet counseling strategies employed by practitioners have, by necessity, often been the result of subjective observation and intuition. In this article the author discusses a “common sense” technique—the use of lay psychology books—and proposes guidelines for use of the procedure as a viable counseling strategy.