Counseling Psychology, one of the original specialties recognized in the profession of psychology, centers on and promotes clients' personal strengths during times of developmental transition or personal challenge and crisis. This tradition has led the discipline to excellence in areas such as improving vocational decision making and understanding client response during counseling. More recently, this tradition has been applied in new and exciting areas, such as understanding the role of multicultural factors among persons and society, responding to crises in life such as health threats and disasters, and enhancement of social justice in systems and communities.

The Oxford Handbook of Counseling Psychology comprises chapters, all written by expert contributors, in four sections: foundations of the specialty; contextual variables such as ethnicity and social class; applications across individual, couple, family and group populations; and intersections of the specialty with new targets of client or context. Each chapter reviews the history of research, theory and application; analyzes current directions, and sets an agenda for the close future, again in theory, research and application. The handbook is a comprehensive and well written survey of many of psychology's domains of growing interest to students, professionals, and the public.