Helping The Client: A Creative Practical Guide

Helping the Client is a classic guide to intervention styles in coaching, counselling, and facilitation. Heron presents six categories of intervention—Prescriptive, Informative, Confronting, Cathartic, Catalytic, and Supportive—each corresponding to different client needs and stages of growth. He also identifies three modes of decision-making: Hierarchical, Cooperative, and Autonomous.

The book encourages reflective, flexible coaching by guiding practitioners to consciously choose interventions that match their client’s context. Heron promotes a client-centred approach that empowers autonomy while also acknowledging moments where direction or challenge is needed.

Structured like a practical manual, the book is accessible and full of examples. Coaches will find its frameworks useful for supervision, self-evaluation, and expanding their range. It is an essential text for building awareness of intervention choice and coaching style.

Key Takeaways:
1. Using six intervention types to meet varying client needs
2. Choosing facilitation modes that balance authority and autonomy
3. Encouraging client agency through deliberate intervention choice