Counselling skills 1
Minimal encouragers are an intentional response to whatever the client is talking about to help them know for sure that you are engaged in the discussion, and they can comfortably keep talking.
What is Reflection of feelings?
Determining the feelings and emotions in a person or client's verbal and body language, and stating (or reflecting) those feelings back to the person.
Listening accurately to another person and reflecting the essence of the content of the communication to the other in your own words.
Who developed the concept of Person-centred therapy? Bonus point of can list the year approximately
Carl R. Rogers
1940s
Explain Confidentiality and its limitations
As mentioned in class
What is summarising?
Involving condensing and restating client information to provide a concise overview of their thoughts, feelings, and experiences.
What is Open-ended questions and their benefits?
Open-ended questions start with “Why?” “How?” and “What?” They encourage a full answer, rather than the simple “yes” or “no” response that is usually given to a closed-ended question.
What is closed-ended question and their benefits?
Close-ended questions ask respondents to choose from a predefined set of responses, typically one-word answers such as “yes/no”, “true/false”, or a set of multiple-choice questions.
They can be useful for obtaining the information or specific details you need from a client.
What does CONGRUENT mean in person-centred approach?
Congruence is whether or not therapists are genuine and authentic in what they say and do. Quite often, if the therapist is saying one thing but the body language is reflective of something else, clients are aware of this and may impact on their trust and openness in the therapeutic relationship (Seligman, 2006). For example, a therapist may say “I understand where you are coming from” to a client but have a confused look on his or her face. The client can see this confusion and feels uncomfortable with expressing feelings from this point forward.
In goal settings, what does SMART stand for? Give example.
Specific
Measurable
Attainable
Realistic
Timeframe
What is paraphrasing?
Repeating back your understanding of the material that has been brought by the client, using your own words. A paraphrase reflects the essence of what has been said.
Why is silence considered as a powerful tool in counselling?
Silence can enable you as counsellor to collect your thoughts and feelings, to process what the client is saying.
Give 1 example about Affirmation and Validation
Acknowledge your client's feelings and experiences to demonstrate that their emotions are valid and understood.
Example: Say your client has just shared how anxious they've felt about job hunting. You could affirm and validate them by replying, “You're not alone in feeling this way. The uncertainty of job searching is incredibly stressful. Your feelings are completely valid.”
What is EMPATHY mean in person-centred approach?
Empathy is a skill used by person-centred therapists to show understanding of the client’s emotions. Empathy is different to sympathy in that sympathy is often seen as feeling sorry for the client whereas empathy shows understanding and allows the client to further open up.
Describe "Focusing" technique.
Involves actively listening to what the client is bringing, and then choosing an area to focus down on. Focusing is like zooming into a detail in a photograph.
Describe "Reframing" technique.
Reframing is a therapeutic technique that assists individuals in broadening re- stricted perspectives.
Describe "Challenging" technique.
Challenge in counselling is the skill of highlighting incongruence and conflicts in the client’s process. By the therapist gently confronting or challenging the client, it can open opportunity for therapeutic exploration.
What does UNCONDITIONAL POSITIVE REGARD mean?
Unconditional positive regard refers to the therapist accepting, respecting and caring about clients (Seligman, 2006). It does not mean the therapist has to agree with everything the client says or does, however, the therapist should see the client as doing the best he or she can and demonstrate this by expressing concern rather than disagreeing with him or her.
Unconditional positive regard allows clients to express how they are thinking without feeling judged, and help to facilitate the change process by showing they can be accepted.
Explain about STAGES of CHANGE MODEL.
Precontemplation: Not yet fully aware that change should happen/unwilling to make a change.
Contemplation: awareness of the need to change, but is not yet ready to make changes. The individual is still weighing up what they need to do and are more open to receiving help/information.
Preparation: Commitment to change – researching options for change and taking the time to prepare correct course of action (sometimes this stage is missed and people go from contemplation to action and fall down because they haven’t made the right preparation).
Action: The individual is ready to make changes and has the ability to initiate changes (building on self-confidence) and is open to help and more likely to seek support from others.
Maintenance: new behaviour patterns and avoiding slips backwards in attitude and behaviour. The individual is aware of their progress and is finding ways to support the changes (resisting the temptation to fail).
Relapse: Returning to old behaviours – the individual finds their old attitudes and behaviours are easier than maintaining new and better behaviour patterns.
Termination/transcendence: Made it – the individual has transformed behaviour into positive, beneficial ways that is constantly being reinforced.
Give 1 example about FOCUSING technique.
Prioritise
Scaling
Give 1 example about REFRAMING technique.
Give 1 example of CHALLENGING technique
> the fact that you are here today proves that you have successfully got yourself out of bed to be here, despite your current state of emotions.
What does Nondirectiveness mean in person-centred approach?
Nondirectiveness refers to allowing clients to be the focus of the therapy session without the therapist giving advice or implementing strategies or activities.
Give an example of unconscious bias, how it would impact on the counselling process and how to overcome them
Why can't they move on?