Basic Counseling Skills
The counselor repeats the client’s message in their own words to check understanding.
What is paraphrasing?
This skill highlights contradictions in what a client says or does to promote insight.
What is confrontation?
This process explains client rights, confidentiality limits, and the counseling structure.
What is informed consent?
A trauma-informed practice focused on grounding clients in the present moment.
What is grounding?
This humanistic approach emphasizes unconditional positive regard and empathy.
What is person-centered therapy?
Considered the father of psychoanalysis, he introduced the id, ego, and superego.
Who is Sigmund Freud?
This nonverbal skill communicates attention and presence through posture, eye contact, and facial expression.
What is attending?
When a counselor appropriately shares personal reactions to strengthen the therapeutic relationship.
What is self-disclosure?
A counselor must take this action when a dual relationship could impair objectivity.
What is avoiding or terminating the dual relationship?
The phase where rapport is built and goals begin to form.
What is the intake or assessment phase?
A therapy model based on identifying and changing automatic thoughts.
What is cognitive therapy?
Known for person-centered therapy and the idea of unconditional positive regard.
Who is Carl Rogers?
A brief statement that mirrors the emotion the client expresses.
What is reflection of feeling?
A technique that helps uncover deeper meaning behind client statements.
What is probing?
When a client is at imminent risk of harm, counselors must take this action.
What is duty to warn and protect?
A strategy where clients identify pros and cons of change, often used in motivational interviewing.
What is developing discrepancy?
A system-based approach that examines circular causality within family dynamics.
What is family systems theory?
A pioneer of cognitive therapy, he developed the concept of automatic thoughts.
Who is Aaron Beck?
This skill encourages elaboration rather than yes/no responses.
What is using open-ended questions?
This here-and-now technique processes what is occurring between counselor and client in the moment.
What is immediacy?
This concept requires counselors to continue learning about cultural identities they do not share.
What is cultural humility?
A technique used to help clients identify patterns in reactions, thoughts, and emotions.
What is self-monitoring?
This approach emphasizes the influence of early attachments on adult functioning.
What is attachment theory?
This psychologist created the eight stages of psychosocial development.
Who is Erik Erikson?
A concise recap linking key themes shared during the session.
What is summarizing?
A skill used to redirect and deepen conversation toward more meaningful material.
What is focusing?
The ethical principle requiring counselors to avoid harming clients.
What is nonmaleficence?
A CBT skill that challenges distorted thoughts and generates balanced alternatives.
What is cognitive restructuring?
This theory focuses on how learning through reinforcement shapes behavior.
What is operant conditioning?
He developed the hierarchy of needs culminating in self-actualization.
Who is Abraham Maslow?