Counseling Skills



Counselling Skills

Part 1

Introduction After reading, viewing, thinking and talking over this question, I came up with the following two informal attempts at defining what a counsellor is.

A counsellor is someone who (by agreement) helps another in the process of sorting out a problem. To put it another way, counselling is an interaction between two people where a person who is trying to sort something out, uses the help of another. A counsellor listens to a client, paraphrases what he or she says, in the process the client might learn something.

More formal definitions of a counsellor might include terms like engagement, dialogue, well being, and therapeutic change. In this essay my analysis and discussion will be fairly informal.

My second definition of counselling attempts to avoid the problem/fixer definition by saying that counselling is simply about learning. Both my definitions suggest that counselling is a process where the client will gain some resolution or understanding about one or more issues or problems. Counseling is about personal change. Why is it that people need to resort counsellors for problem solving anyway? One answer is that counsellors have developed skills that are found to be useful in problem solving. This implies that a counsellor is someone who is skilled in facilitating this process.

Through attending different seminars and working with different people I found out that there are a variety of counseling skills which are very important.

Listening Counselling is a process, counselling is more than just listening. Obviously a counsellor will be a good listener in that they will pay attention to what the client is saying. Good listening skills are a basic requirement. Specific Counselling Skills On top of listening skills, a counsellor will need to be able to think about the client and the client's problems. What the counsellor does next will depend on their philosophy, experience and training. Simple counselling skills include paraphrasing what the client has said. Psychoanalytic techniques might include asking the client about related early memories. A currently contentious technique is self-disclosure, where the counsellor reveals personal information to the client. The idea is that this will engender confidence in the client by demonstrating how genuine the counsellor is. My position here is that trust is an important component in the client-counsellor relationship and that self-disclosure may appropriate if it comes from being real.

I found out that there are many ways that trust is conveyed and instilled (in any relationship). There is a difference between realness and modelling realness. Being real is crucial. In counselling I question the need to use contrived techniques. Of all the counselling skills or styles perhaps the most important is simply paying good attention to the client.

Attention I have had a long involvement with Buddhist meditation and also with Re-evaluation Counseling. With this background I find that I am most comfortable with the Existential approach to counselling. I agree with Corey that "quality of presence" is one of the most significant characteristics of an effective counsellor. I think that quality of presence is ...