This text presents a novel approach to teaching and learning the fundamental skills and techniques of counseling and psychotherapy, based on a "non-linear" process of thinking that more accurately reflects the reality of mental health practice. At the core of this text lies the idea that to best prepare students for practice with real clients, they have to learn how to think in a new way, the way that research has shown the most effective practitioners think. The result is a paradigm shift in how to teach and learn basic counseling skills, which separates this text from the competition and brings training up to speed with current practice.