COUNSELLING SKILLS

 

COUNSELLING SKILLS

1. Attending behaviours.
2. Building rapport.
3. Close and open-ended questioning.
4.  Active listening.
5. Para phrasing.
6. Summarizing.

  1.Attending

»         Attending refers to the ways in which counsellors can be “with” their clients, both physically and psychologically.

»           Effective attending tells clients that you are with them and that they can share their world with you.

»         Effective attending also puts you in a position to listen carefully to what your clients are saying.

»         The acronym SOLER can be used to help you to show your inner attitudes and values of respect and genuineness towards a client.

»         S: Squarely face your client. Adopt a bodily posture that indicates involvement with your client.

»         O: Open posture. Ask yourself to what degree your posture communicates openness and availability to the client. Crossed legs and crossed arms may be interpreted as diminished involvement with the client or even unavailability or remoteness, while an open posture can be a sign that you are open to the client and to what he or she has to say.

»         L: Lean toward the client (when appropriate) to show your involvement and interest. To lean back from your client may convey the opposite message.

»         E: Eye contact with a client conveys the message that you are interested in what the client has to say.

            R: Try to be relaxed or natural with the client.

»         Don't fidget nervously or engage in distracting facial expressions.

»         The client may begin to wonder what it is in himself   or herself that makes you so nervous!

»         Being relaxed means that you are comfortable with using your body as a vehicle of personal contact and   expression and for putting the client at ease.

»         Effective attending puts counsellors in a position to listen carefully to what their clients are saying or not   saying.

2. BUILDING RAPPORT

»         Rapport forms the basis of meaningful, close and harmonious relationships between people.

»          It’s the sense of connection that you get when you meet someone you like and trust, and whose point of view you understand.

»          It’s the bond that forms when you discover that you share one another’s values and priorities in life.

q  According to researchers Linda Tickle-Degnen and Robert Rosenthal, when you have a rapport with someone, you share:

Ÿ  Mutual attentiveness: You are both focused on, and interested in, what the other person is saying or doing.

Ÿ  Positivity: you are both friendly and happy, and you show care and concern for one another.

Ÿ  Coordination: you feel “in sync” with one another, so that you share a common understanding. Your energy levels, tone and body language are also similar.

   Techniques to Build Rapport

1.Watch the other person’s body language including gesture, posture and expression.

2.Adopt a similar temperament. If the other person is introverted or extroverted, shy or exuberant, you should behave in the same way.

3.Use similar language: If he uses simple, direct words, then you should, too. If he speaks in technical

  language, then match that style. You can also reiterate key or favorite words or phrases.

4.Match the other person’s speech patterns, such as tone, tempo and volume. For instance, if he speaks

     softly and slowly, then lower the volume and tempo of your voice.

3. PROBING OR QUESTIONING

»         Probing involves statements and questions from the counsellor that enable clients to explore more fully any relevant issue of their lives.

»          Probes can take the form of statements, questions, requests, single word or phrases and non-verbal prompts.

Probes or questions serve the following purposes:

Ÿ  to encourage non-assertive or reluctant clients to tell their stories.

Ÿ  to help clients to remain focused on relevant and important issues.

Ÿ  to help clients to identify experiences, behaviours and feelings that give a fuller picture to their story, in other words, to fill in missing pieces of the picture.

Ÿ  to help clients to move forward in the helping process to help clients understand themselves and their problem situations more fully.

4. Listening

q  Listening refers to the ability of counsellors to capture and understand the messages clients communicate as they tell their stories, whether those messages are transmitted verbally or nonverbally.

Active listening involves the following four skills:

»         The counsellor has to listen to the mix of experiences, behaviour and feelings the client uses to describe his or her problem situation.

»         Also “hear” what the client is not saying.

»         Listening to and interpreting the client's nonverbal messages. Counsellors should learn how to listen to and read nonverbal messages such as bodily behaviour (posture, body movement and gestures), facial expressions (smiles, frowns, raised eyebrows, twisted lips), voice? Related behaviour (tone, pitch, voice level, intensity, inflection, spacing of words, emphases, pauses, silences) etc.

5.PARAPHRASING

»         When you paraphrase, you use your own words to express something that was written or said by another person.

»          Putting it into your own words can clarify the message, make it more relevant to your audience or give it greater impact.

»         Paraphrased material should keep its original meaning and (approximate) length, but you an use it to pick out a single point from a longer discussion.

 

Paraphrasing in Counselling skills:

»             Paraphrasing occurs when the counselor states what the client has just said, using fewer words but without changing the meaning of what the client said. 

»         when utilizing this skill, you attempt to feed back the essence of what the person has just said.

How to improve paraphrasing skills?

The following techniques should be used to improve paraphrasing skills:

1.Read your text/paragraph and ensure that you understand it.

2.Write down your ideas without looking at the original.

3.Use synonyms or change the word order of your sentence.

4.Compare with the original to see whether you are conveying the same meaning.

6. Summarizing

»         It is sometimes useful for the counsellor to summarize what was said in a session so as to provide a focus to what was previously discussed, and so as to challenge the client to move forward.

»          Summaries are particularly helpful under the following circumstances:

»          At the beginning of a new session. A summary of this point can give direction to clients who do not know   where to start; it can prevent clients from merely repeating what they have already said, and it can   pressure a client to move forwards.

»         When a session seems to be going nowhere. In such circumstances, a summary may help to focus the client.

ROLE AND QUALITIES OF COUNSELLOR.

 

ROLE AND QUALITIES OF   COUNSELLOR.

The role of the Counsellor

Ø  It is important to understand that counselling and guidance are not synonymous.

Ø  Guidance is the overall framework of personnel services with the school.

Ø  The counsellor is the in charge of guidance programme. The counsellor is responsible for:

1. Organize interview programme, to help the     student make wise decisions and choices and to     

    resolve their problems of adjustment.

2. Organizational and operational responsibility for various aspects of orientation programmes. 

3. He is the Responsible for the placement function, involving cooperative relationships between

    placement agencies and the school.

4. Responsibility to coordinate community resources and agencies,

5. He may also serve as a social worker of the school.

6. The counsellor should serve as a general consultant on guidance within the school and responsible for

    all related activities.

7. Conduct follow-up studies for dropouts.

8. Help the pupils and staff identify moral, emotional, educational values and problems in guidance.

 

Role of the School Counselor

         E.G. Williamson has explained the role of a counselor as;

1.The aim of the counsellor is to help the students in changing their behaviour through learning.

2.To help the students in modifying their behaviour through learning.

3.The counsellor, along with the client collect the information about the client and his surroundings.

4.The counsellor also provide information to the client, about social environment, about selected

    psychological concepts and regarding the decision-making process.

5.The counselor interprets the information about the counselee or client.

6.The counsellor also act as an advisor too.

7.The role of the counselor also includes providing information   to the client about decision making

    process.

8.The cooperation of the pupils and their participation are essential for a successful counselor.

9. The counsellor should be respecting the client. Intern, the client should also see the counsellor

     respectfully.

10The counsellor should be honest in recognizing is training and limitation of the skills.

11. The counsellor should be able to attract the confidence of the pupils.

 12.The counsellor should be sensitive towards the problem. The sensitivity of the counsellor is his

       important characteristics.

Qualities of a Good Counselor

A Good counselor has several basic qualities;

1.Professional Qualities:

»         He knows the demands and responsibilities of the counseling profession.

»         He is aware of the steps and techniques involved in the counseling process.

»         He is confident and well versed in the methods and approaches of counseling.  

2.Personal Qualities

»         The Counselor respects the client’s individuality and dignity.

»         He knows the psychology of each client, how they think and behave.      

»         He is kind and sympathetic to clients’ problems and anxieties.

»         He is control of his emotions especially of anger, impatience and frustrations.

»         He is able to use humor and laughter in his counseling, laugh with clients, not laugh at them or them at him.

3. Communication Skills:

»         Effective counselors should have excellent communication skills.

»         Counselors need to have a natural ability to listen and be able clearly explain their ideas and thoughts to others.

4. Acceptance:

»         The ability to relate to clients with an open, nonjudgmental attitude.

»         Accepting the client for who she is and in her current situation.

»         Counsellors need to be able to convey acceptance to their clients with warmth and understandingly.

5.Empathy:

»         Counselors must be able to display empathy, the ability to feel what another person is feeling.

»         Compassion and empathy help your clients feel understood and heard.

6. Problem-Solving skills:

»         It’s not up to a counselor to solve her clients’ problems, no matter how much she might want to help.

»         Counselors must have excellent problem-solving skills to be able to help their clients identify and make changes to negative thought patterns and other harmful behaviours.

7. Rapport-Building Skills:

»         Counselors must possess a strong set of interpersonal skills to help establish rapport with clients and develop strong relationships.

»         Counselors need to be able to place all of their focus on what their clients are saying and avoid being distracted by their own personal problems or concerns when they are in a session.

8. Flexibility:

»         Flexibility in counseling is defined as the ability to adapt and change the way you respond to meet your clients’ needs.

»         You don’t stay rigid and stick to a predetermined treatment path when your clients require a different approach.

9.Self-Awareness:

»         Self-awareness is the ability to look within and identify your own unmet psychological needs and desires.

»         Such as a need for intimacy or the desire to be professionally competent.

»         This ability prevents your issues from affecting or conflicting with those of your clients.

»         Self-awareness has a major impact on a counselor’s effectiveness.

10.Multicultural Competency:

»         Counselors help people from all walks of life.

»         Multicultural competency means that you try to relate to and understand your clients regardless of their race, ethnicity, religious or political beliefs or socioeconomic background.

11. Human Skills:

»         Counseling effectiveness is measured by outcomes, so skills are required that facilitate clients improve their lives through changes in their thought processes and behaviour.

»         A skilled counselor can identify negative thinking patterns and enable the clients to replace them with positive ones.

»         The counselor needs to be able to challenge, reassure and motivate the client, especially when the client is resistant or finds it difficult to face painful memories.

12.Practice Management Skills:

»         Whether running her own practice or simply managing her workload as an employee, the counselor needs to possess a number of organizational skills including prioritizing and timekeeping.

»         Failure to be organized can result in the counselor herself appearing unprofessional and potentially have catastrophic outcomes for the clients and the practice

»         Good record-keeping is particularly important, because all records must be treated confidentially and the counselor will be responsible for effective note- taking during the session.

»         It is essential the counselor learns to control her own emotional involvement during difficult sessions, which may raise personal issues of her own.

TYPES OF COUNSELLING

 

TYPES OF COUNSELLING

1. DIRECTIVE COUNSELLING APPROACH
(Prescriptive or Counsellor-centered Counselling)

Ø  Counseling during which a professional play an active role in a client's or patient's decision making by offering advice, guidance, and/or recommendations. 

Ø   Directive counselling is the process of listening to a member’s problem, deciding with the member what should be done, and then encouraging and motivating the person to do it.

Ø  It is also known as prescriptive counselling or counsellor-centered approach of counselling.

Ø  In directive counselling, the counsellor plays a leading role and uses a variety of techniques to suggest appropriate solutions to the counselee’s problem.

Ø  This approach also known as authoritarian or psychoanalytic approach.

Ø  The counsellor is active and help individual in making decisions and finding solution to their problems.

Ø  The counsellor believes in the limited capacity of the patient.

Steps of Counselling

1.Analysis:

Ø  Collection from a variety of sources the data needed for an adequate understanding of the student.

2. Synthesis:

Ø  Summarizing and organizing the data so that they reveal the students’ assets, liabilities, adjustments and maladjustments.

3. Diagnosis:

Ø  Formulating conclusions regarding the nature and the cause of the problems exhibited by the student.

4. Prognosis:

Ø  Predicting the future development of the student’s problems.

5. Counselling:

Ø  The counsellor’s taking steps with the student to bring about adjustment and readjustment for the student.

6. Follow-up:

Ø  Helping the student with new problems or with recurrence of the original problem and determining the effectiveness of the counselling provided to him.

Features of Directive Counselling

1. In directive counselling, the attention is focused upon a particular problem and possibilities for its solution.
2. Client make the decision and counsellor see whether the decision keeping with diagnosis.
3. It is also called the prescriptive counselling.
4. The counselee work under the counsellor not with him.

Advantages of Directive counseling

1. Time Saving:

Ø  Since the task of the counselor is only giving suggestion/advice, pressures, therefore it consumes less time.

2. Economic:

Ø  Time is not wasted so it is economic.

 

3. Organized:

Ø  Systematic approach. Involves an organized set of steps.

4. Active participation of counselor:

Ø  Counselor is active participant and directs the individual in decision making.

 

Limitations of the directive counselling approach.

1. The patient does not gain any liability for self-analysis or solve new problems of adjustment by counselling.
2. It makes the counselee over dependent on the counsellor.
3. Problems regarding emotional maladjustment may be better solved by nondirective counselling.
4. Sometimes the counselee lacks information regarding the counselee, leads wrong counselling.
5. It does not guarantee that the counselee will able to solve the same problem on his own in future.

 

2.NON-DIRECTIVE COUNSELLING

»         The counselee (Student) is the pivot.

»         He takes an active part in the process of counselling. He gains insight into his problem with the help of the counsellor.

»         The role of the counsellor is passive. The counsellor provides a place where the client works out the solution with the assistance of the counsellor.

»         Counsellor’s attitude is friendly, interested and receptive. The counselee has adequate freedom to express his feelings.

»         The goal is on the individual rather than the solution of a particular problem.

»         The main function of the counsellor is to create proper environment. The emotional elements rather than the intellectual elements are stressed.

Characteristics of Non-directive Counselling

1. Non-directive counselling is to listen, support and advise, without a client’s course of action.
2. It has been influenced by humanistic theories in the tradition of Carl Rogers, but techniques used in nondirective counselling are common in many forms of psychological counselling and treatment today.

Steps of Non-Directive Counselling

1. Defining the problematic situation:

»              First of all, the counselor should define the problematic situation.

 2. Free expression of feelings:

»            After the first step, the client is made aware of the fact that he can express his feelings freely and the counselor approves this.

 3. Development of Insight:

Ø  The counselor goes on thinking regarding the client’s new feelings along with the development of client’s insight and he goes on classifying all those new feelings.

4. Classification of positive and negative feelings:

»              After the free expressions of feelings by the client, the counselor identifies his negative and positive feelings and he classifies them.

   5. Termination of counseling situation:

»             The counselor looks for a point where he can terminate the counselling situation after all the above steps.

»          According to this school of thought, either the client or the counselor can suggest for such termination of counseling situation.

Advantages of Non-Directive Counselling

1. It is slow but sure process to make an individual capable of making adjustments.

2.No tests are used so one avoids all that is laborious and difficult.

3.It removes emotional block and helps an individual bring repressed thoughts on a conscious level   

    thereby reducing tension.

4. Independence of Counselee:

»         Counselee is independent of making decisions for himself to   Solve his own problems. It removes emotional blocks.

5. Freedom:

»         It feels free in talking about his problem and possible causes.

 6. Knowledge:

»         Knowledge based approach. Without knowledge counselor cannot be a Competent part of this approach.

Limitations/Disadvantages of Non-directive Counselling

1. More suitable to sort out emotional/personal

     problems.

 2. Time consuming:

»         Free flow of view of counselee needs time.

  3. Not Economic:

»         Many sessions may be required to develop insight in the counselee.

  4. Require special Training:

»         Cannot be used effectively without training.

  5. Emergence of Non-Acceptable solutions:

»         Sometime the counselee may drive out non- acceptable non-suitable readjustment solutions which are impractical in life.

3.ECLECTIC COUNSELLING

»              Here the counsellor first studies the personality and needs of the individual.

»          He then selects the technique that would be most helpful for the individual.

»         He can start with the directive one but when the situation demands, the counsellor may switch over to the non-directive and vice-versa.

»         The attempt is made to adjust the techniques to the requirements of the situation and the individual.

»         The chief advocate of Eclectic counseling is F.C.Thorne. 

»         Eclectic counseling is defined as the combination of the two extremes that is directive and non-directive counseling.

»         In eclectic counseling, the counselor is neither too active as in the directive counseling nor too passive as in the non-directive counseling.

»         He just follows the middle path between these two.  That is, it is neither counselor-centered nor client-centered.

Characteristics of Eclectic Counselling

1.Methods of counselling may change from client to client or even with the same client from time to time.

2.It is highly flexible.

3.Freedom of choice and expression is open to both the counsellor and the counselee.

4.Experience of mutual confidence and faith in the relationship are basic.

5.The client and the philosophical framework are adjusted to save the purpose of the relationship.

Steps in Eclectic counseling

q  Thorne, suggested the following steps,

1. Diagnosis of the cause.
2.  Analysis of the problem.
3.  Securing effective conditions for counseling.
4. Interviewing and stimulating the client to develop his own resources and to assume its responsibility  

    for trying new modes of adjustment.
5.  Proper handling of any related problems which may   contribute to adjustment.

According to R.C Thorne following are the main steps involved in eclectic counselling;

1.Counselling may be preceded by an intake interview.

2.During the opening phase of counselling the counselor tries to establish rapport and may have to do structuring so that the client understands what to expect of counselling.

3.Often a tentative diagnosis is made which may include the collection of a case history and a plan for counselling if formulated.

4.To enhance the client’s self-understanding about him.

5.Educational, occupational and social information if needed by the client may be supplied to him.

6.During the closing face the client makes decisions and plans and modifies behaviour and solves his problems.

7.There may be follow up contacts.

Advantages of an Eclectic Counselling

1. Safety: The use of variety of ideas and procedure from different existing approaches and methods will increase the chance of learning taking place.

2.Interest: Teachers need to use different techniques to hold the learners’ attention.

3. Diversity: Different learning/teaching contexts require different methodologies.

4. Flexibility: Awareness of range of available techniques will help teachers exploit materials better and manage unexpected situations. Informed teaching is bound to be eclectic.

5.It doesn’t restrict one perspective so allows new ideas to be formed.

6.Combination method is a useful way of validating ideas.

7. Strength of one method can be used to offset the weakness.

8.Individual needs are better matched to treatment when more option is available.

9.Therapeutic method treat the entire disorder and not just one symptom.

Disadvantages of Eclectic Counselling

1) Some people are of the view that eclectic counseling is vague, opportunistic and superficial.
2) Both directive and non-directive counseling cannot be mixed together.
3) In this, the question arises how much freedom should be given to the client? For this there is

 non-definite rule.
4) The problem with an eclectic orientation is that counselors often do more harm than good if they

  have little or no understanding about what is helping   the client.

5) It does not lend itself to prediction and control of   behaviour.

6) It difficult to identify the relative contributions of   each approach.

7) There is a practical difficulty in investigating the   integration of approach.

8) There are practical difficulties when providing   eclectic therapy. It may be too complex for one              

  clinician to manage.