ABSTRACT
This chapter introduces a specific set of communication skills which can be used across various helping, business, and service-related occupations. It begins with a brief overview of Developmental Counselling and Therapy (DCT), its philosophical foundation and theoretical assumptions, the research and practice findings that have informed its development, and the advancements in neuroscience research that provide a solid foundation for its premises and techniques. The empirical research validates the importance of DCT's assumption that targeted language and communication practices help to elicit intended cognitive and affective client reactions. The conceptual implications embedded in DCT's theoretical constructs are directly translated into linguistic strategies and classification systems that interviewers can draw from when engaged in helping interviews. As an integrative theory of counselling and therapy, DCT additionally offers a coherent integrative classification matrix that counsellors can use to organise traditional and contemporary counselling and interviewing approaches and strategies already familiar to them within a developmental framework.
