Don’t give up!

As I lay in a hospital bed making summary notes for my proposed book on counselling in November 2009, I did not fully realise that I was actually slowly dying from a staph aureus infection MRSA which had a high fatality rate.

The doctors initially could not find the source of the infection. I had three TOEs (Transesophageal Echocardiograms - sounds more impressive) where you (try and) swallow a small microphone so that can get a picture of your heart valve behind the ribs. They numb the back of your throat and hope for the best. The first was not helpful, the second got stuck, but the third gave the answer. I had previously had two aortic pig-valve (oink! oink!) replacements because I was born with a slight aorta fault, and in the second surgery they replaced a section of the aorta artery as well as the aorta which had stretched. With the third they found that the infection had got into the artery join and a false embolism had formed ready to explode and take me out. They got me into Auckland Hospital pretty quickly where I had lengthy, high-risk emergency open-heart surgery and ended up with an artificial (metal) aortic heart valve. Recovery was slow but steady and I won’t bore you with an organ recital! Obviously, God wanted me to finish writing my counselling book.

It all began in my sixties when, after holding the foundation Chair in Statistics at Auckland University in New Zealand for several decades, I decided to train part-time to be a counsellor/psychotherapist. Early on in my training and initial sally into counselling, I found it hard to find useful material to give me ideas for counselling people with a wide range of issues. Either there were whole books on a single issue, for example anger or stress, that I didn’t have time to read, or the books were somewhat technical and not very practical. The Internet could be helpful sometimes, but it was of limited help. I decided to write my own book, Counseling Issues, to fill the gap.

I was an experienced writer at the time having authored or co-authored a number of mostly very large statistics books with well-known publishers, so I was not afraid of the size of the task. The book of 22 chapters and 638 pages took over four years to write and I thought I would have no problems finding a publisher. Wrong! I found the psychology and other editors unhelpful and not interested in a book of that size. I was turned down eight times and sometimes treated badly even though I was an established statistics author with an international reputation.

The editors usually wanted something more technical, or a textbook. In desperation I decided to self-publish as I believed from local comments that the book would be very useful, and I wanted to get it out there to help people. If I made some money out of it, fine, but that was not my main concern. The whole process has not been easy, but I am very pleased with the final product. It was finally published in 2013.

Although the book was initially written for beginning counsellors, some of the topics are advanced so that experienced counsellors have also been very interested in the book. It is also useful to anyone in a helping profession such as a doctor, nurse, teacher or pastor to have on their shelf as a reference book, and some people have bought it to use as a self-help book.

Looking back at the heart event ten years ago I am grateful that God has given me those years. I have been counselling for seventeen years now and my book has been very successful. A lot of the material has been useful in my counselling room. What have I learnt from the whole exercise? Be patient, persevering, and positive; don’t give up. My book has been well reviewed and below is a review from a well-known professional reviewing organization, Blueink.

Counseling Issues
George Seber
Xlibris, 638 pages
(Reviewed: July, 2013)

The bulk of books on psychological disorders are in the self-help genre, not meant for practitioners. Books for psychologists and counselors tend toward the academic, often making for heavy reading in the extreme.

Enter New Zealander George Seber, an emeritus professor of statistics at Auckland University and author of 15 books on statistics. Now engaged in a post-retirement career as a psychotherapist, in which he has focused on counseling couples for ten years, he offers a comprehensive guide to personality disorders and emotional and relationship issues that counselors and psychotherapists are likely to encounter in their practices.

Seber organizes this hefty tome in broad, intuitive categories, such as “Anger,” “Guilt and Shame,” “Stress” and “Compulsive Disorders.” He offers background on each topic, diagnostic criteria, likely socio-cultural factors, helpful, up-to-date talk therapy guidance and more. Never overblown, the book offers just enough depth to help practitioners do their jobs.

While long and encyclopedic, the book is simple to navigate and highly strategic; one typically needs to read less than ten pages to understand Seber's suggested (and well-referenced) ways to help a client. The precision and breadth of information, as well as the ease of reading are a combination that would thrill any therapist. The author concludes each chapter with thoughtful Biblical perspectives to offer Christian counselors or practitioners wishing to suggest situation-specific Bible verses to help their Christian clients. Twenty-five pages of references round out this salient guide.

Self-publishing such a wonderful resource for his industry was a risky financial move, since it can be difficult to market independent books in industries dominated by large, academically oriented publishing companies, but Seber clearly knows what he's doing. Professional counselors and psychotherapists, especially those new to the field, should find this book indispensable.

Also available in hardcover and ebook.