Counseling the Procrastinator in Academic Settings

Book excerpt: "This book is about counseling students who procrastinate. It consists of a collection of experiences, procedures, and research provided by psychologists who specialize in counseling students who seek help for their dilatory tendencies. Although procrastination, or putting off until tomorrow what one should do today, is a phenomenon well-known for thousands of years, it is only recently that systematic research has been conducted with respect to its manifestations, causes, and cures. One probable reason for studying procrastination is that procrastinators continually fail to adhere temporally to schedules they and others have set, which in industrial societies is an important precondition for the efficient use of technology, time, and other resources. This volume is intended as a handbook for counselors, student advisers, and psychologists seeking to prevent or treat procrastination in students. It is organized into three parts. Part I is theoretical, and it begins with two relatively short theoretical background chapters. Part II presents, in a somewhat arbitrary sequence, a number of counseling and intervention models developed for procrastinating students. Finally, Part III is an epilogue consisting of one somewhat critical final chapter on the status and future of intervention models for counseling the procrastinator in academic settings"--Pref..