Counseling Techniques

Question 1

As if

Answer 1

This is a form of encouraging and motivating clients to be the way they desire to be, “acting as it” the transition has already occurred.

Question 2

Active imagination

Answer 2

One identifies an entity, through a dream or other scene, and activates attention to the figure through meditation. The client is invited to enter the scene and dialogue with the entity, usually one that has qualities opposite the ego, thereby accessing rejected elements and availing them to the conscious mind. This may be done in writing, art, sculpting, dance, or other medium.

Question 3

Active listening

Answer 3

Requires that the listener fully concentrate, understand, respond and then remember what is being said.

Question 4

Activity Scheduling

Answer 4

Useful in treating depression; done in a chart using short word descriptions, arranged easiest to hardest, includes both necessary and enjoyable tasks. The is client is to follow the planned activities and documents any activities that were not pre-planned each week, rating the activities according to level of pleasure, until the client has resumed their normal schedule.

Question 5

Advocacy

Answer 5

The therapist will engage necessary supports or assist the client when stuck points cannot be overcome and present as a hindrance to the central work, including advocacy regarding unfair or outdated policies.

Question 6

Analysis and assessment

Answer 6

This technique is about exploration of the family constellation (sociogram of the individuals at home during the client’s formative years) and early recollections and is not about interpretations to the client.

Question 7

Analysis of Resistance and Defenses

Answer 7

Interpreting how the patient avoids or manages pain. Pointing out any behaviors the patient uses to resist exploring specific issues of therapy in general (i.e. silence, lateness, deflecting) assit the patient in gaining insight about these isses

Question 8

Analysis of Transferemce

Answer 8

1. Client’s personal hx projections onto the therapist
2. Client differentiates their unconscious from the collective
3. The therapist’s reality is differentiated from the superimposed images
4. The achievement of greater knowledge and insight within the self having worked through the transference and into an authentic relationship with the therapist

Question 9

Art

Answer 9

Art is tied directly to the unconscious and brings out tangible of emotions to the surface, and also allows the client to become more self aware in a non-threatening medium. May be used alone of with other techniques

Question 10

Assertiveness and social skills training

Answer 10

Involves teaching specific skills and tools to enable the client to act and interact with greater success. The mechanism for this is often modeling, role-playing, and behavioral rehearsal

Question 11

Assertiveness Training - Feminist

Answer 11

This technique provides specific training and insight to raise women’s awareness of their interpersonal rights, assist in transcending stereotyped sex roles, and alter negative belief systems to change daily patterns, actions and interactions

Question 12

Aversion Therapy

Answer 12

A technique where the client is exposed to a stimulus while also being exposed to some type of discomfort. The objective is to pair the stimulus with the unpleasant sensation resulting in the stopping of the undesirable behavior

Question 13

Behavioral Experiments

Answer 13

The client experiments with experiencing, reflecting, observing, planning, testing thoughts, and discovery to target specific thoughts or behaviors under consideration for change or challenge

Question 14

Behavioral Extinction

Answer 14

A therapy technique where the client’s rewards are removed to stop an undesirable behavior

Question 15

Behavioral Observation

Answer 15

Involves objectifying a specific behavior and observing the behavior in the client’s natural environment. This is most common in institutionalized settings, where the clinician is present and can count or objectively observe and analyze data

Question 16

Behavioral rehearsal and role-playing

Answer 16

The imagines a target situation, and the therapist guides the client thought a step by step process of successfully coping with the situation. The client then practices the steps in a mental rehearsal in a variety of ways

Question 17

Bibliotherapy

Answer 17

The therapist assigns any number of self-help books to enhance the specific issue being addressed to immerse the client in information and to aid the client in re-education

Question 18

Bibiliotherapy - Feminist

Answer 18

Cslr encourages reading on gender inequality, how sexism is promoted, topical issues, power differentials between the sexes, assertiveness, coping skills, and more. Reading empowers the client and allows the client to make informed choices.

Question 19

Biofeedback

Answer 19

The client is given feedback about what brain waves, sympathetic nervous system are doing to engage a relaxation response by the client through providing feedback to the client through visual or auditory means.

Question 20

Blow-up technique

Answer 20

Have the client imagine the worst case scenario of what he/or she fears occurring, then blow the event out of the proportion until the client cannot help but find amusement in it

Question 21

Body Awareness (Bodywork)

Answer 21

Raising awareness of where in the body feelings are associated through breathing techniques or reflecting inconsistencies between verbal reports and body language

Question 22

Catastrophe Scale

Answer 22

Addresses awfulizing. Have the client write a scale from 0 - 100% in 10% intervals. Have the client progressively alter their concerning item to fit into perspective of the other items.

Question 23

Chaining

Answer 23

Involves the series of smaller behaviors that are linked to the desired complex behavior. Each step is prompted and reinforced, strengthening all of the parts of the chain that move toward the desired behavior

Question 24

Check feelings, thoughts and bodily sensations: Behind Their Story

Answer 24

Ask the client to describe what they’re feeling they describe something or vice versa. Helps client to be fully present

Question 25

Circular Questioning

Answer 25

This is a technique for interviewing hypothesis validation in which each family member comments on the behavior and interactions of other family members

Question 26

Cognitive restructuring

Answer 26

Involves identifying, challenging, and changing faulty beliefs and distortions in thinking though examining logic, testing the truth of the thought or believe, and finding alternative explanation. Involves looking for evidence for and against the distorted thought

Question 27

Compliments

Answer 27

Seeks to validate the client for what they are already doing well and to reinforce that what the client is doing is working.

Question 28

Congruence

Answer 28

The therapist acts as a role model for the client, and models the human struggle toward greater realness and a space in which the real self and ideal self are the same

Question 29

Contract

Answer 29

An essential element with all clients, individual and group, establishing the structure of the relationship, from the Child Ego state perspective of how the client will be different as a result of work done. The contract is concrete, specific, and measurable

Question 30

Decatastrophizing or what if

Answer 30

Therapist would have the client state their feared consequence of a situation and then identify strategies for coping.

Question 31

Decentering

Answer 31

Helpful with anxious clients who believe they are the focus of others. The technique is to set up experiments to challenge
the client’s belief and assist them to see that others are not focused upon the client, but rather daydrea, attend to children, drive, bite their nails, or whatever the situation discloses

Question 32

Deconstruct the problem

Answer 32

The therapist will assist the client in making the problem specific and manaeable