M3: Strategic Counseling Plan Flashcards
In this module, we discuss the process of creating a strategic counseling plan for a client
Remedial Counseling
Remedial counseling is used to address a problem. The counselor helps the client to understand his current situation and identify possible remedies. In order to be most effective, clients must take responsibility for their actions.
Key elements of the remedial counseling approach include:
Clarify the elements of the problem.
Generate solutions to the problem.
Identify obstacles to the solution(s).
Develop a system or program for preventing recurrence of the problem.
Productive Counseling
Productive counseling is appropriate for clients who are financially stable but looking for better ways to use their resources.
Key elements of the productive counseling approach include:
Identify ways to achieve goals.
Develop an action plan to achieve goals.
Develop an evaluation system to determine if goals have been achieved.
Implement the action plan.
Monitor progress.
Preventive Counseling
Preventive counseling combines the remedial and productive approaches. It is appropriate when a client is financially stable but believes that they will need remediation if they do not make more efficient use of their resources.
Key elements of the preventive counseling approach include:
Determine forces that could prevent the client from achieving goals.
Develop a system for achieving goals in the most satisfying manner.
Prepare alternative courses of action before they are needed.
Initiating
In this first interaction with the client, counselors should begin to establish the client-counselor relationship. The goal of this stage is to make a client feel comfortable and safe so that they can fully discuss their financial situation with the counselor
Exploring
This is the information-gathering stage of the counseling process. In this stage, the counselor may need to employ a variety of communication techniques in order to learn about the client’s needs, goals, and current financial situation.
Understanding
In this stage, the counselor and the client generate action plans designed to solve problems or achieve stated goals. At the conclusion of this stage, both the client and the counselor should agree upon a plan of action.
Acting
In this stage, either the client or the counselor implement the agreed upon action plan. Also, the counselor and the client should be performing an ongoing evaluation to determine if the action plan is achieving the desired results. If not, the counselor and the client should return to the understanding stage to revise the action plan or possibly return to the exploring stage to revise goals.
Visual Learning Style
Visual learners use images to characterize events. These learners process information by seeing, picturing, reflecting, and mirroring data.
Auditory Learning Style
Auditory learners use sound to characterize events. These learners process information by hearing, analyzing, and using abstract thinking.
Kinesthetic Learning Style
Kinesthetic learners use feelings and/or actions to characterize events. These learners process information by sensing, feeling, and acting.
The four principles of motivational interviewing undergird a counseling style
Expresses empathy through communicating that they understand what the client is experiencing.
Develops a sense of discrepancy in the client by identifying the differences between behaviors and intended outcomes.
Rolls with client resistance rather than engaging in it. That is, the counselor allows the client to voice their opinions and concerns without being confrontational.
Supports client self-efficacy by creating hope that change can occur, encouraging the client to identify their own solutions, and helping the client take responsibility for making the necessary changes.
Solution-Focused Brief Therapy
Solution-Focused Brief Therapy (SFBT) is a form of psychotherapy that assumes that clients are ready and able to change but need help recognizing how to do so.
Key Interventions Related to Motivational Interviewing
Counselors who use the Motivational Interviewing counseling strategy make use of four key skills.
These are asking open-ended questions, affirming, reflective listening, and summarizing.
Key Interventions - Open-ended questions
provide more information and opportunities for exploration than closed-ended questions.
Key Interventions - Affirming
requires counselors to acknowledge and validate the client in their successes.
Key Interventions - Reflective listening
requires the counselor to confirm that they understood what the client is saying
Key Interventions - Summarizing is a
reflection of what was said during the session and demonstrates that the counselor has been listening.
Major Tenets of Solution-Focused Brief Therapy (SFBT)
“If it’s not broke, don’t fix it.”
“If it works, do more of it.”
“If it’s not working, do something different.”
“Small steps can lead to big changes.”
“The solution is not necessarily directly related to the problem.”
“The language for solution development is different from that needed to describe a problem.”
“No problems happen all of the time, there are always exceptions that can be utilized.”
“The future is both created and negotiable.”
Key Interventions Related to SFBT
Counselors who use the SFBT counseling strategy use two key question types as interventions that may be combined. These are the miracle question and scaling questions.
The miracle question
asks clients to visualize how their life would be different if the problem did not exist.
Scaling questions
ask clients to assess an issue on a scale from 0 to 10. Counselors can use scaling questions to help clients find where they see themselves on any given topic and what steps are required to move the client in a positive direction on the scale.
Active listening
a type of listening that includes attending behavior and encouragers, conversation pacing, clarification, and summarizing
Appreciative Inquiry (AI)
a counseling strategy that uses the deliberate process of recognizing and affirming past and present strengths and success coupled with an openness to discovering future possibilities.
Attending
a listening behavior that occurs when a financial counselor orients themselves physically to the client in such a way that the client knows that she has the counselor’s full attention.
Empathy
a habit of mind characterized as “the ability to put oneself into a client’s context and being able to perceive and understand what the client is experiencing.”
Encouragers
a listening behavior that prompts clients to continue talking and can be either verbal or non-verbal.
Engaging
the process of building and maintaining the counselor-client relationship.
Evoking
the process of helping the client figure out why and how they will change.
Focusing
the process of concentrating on the client’s issue.
Leading
a strategy whereby a counselor uses her own body language to encourage a client to change his body language.
Mirroring
a phenomenon that occurs when people are fully engaged in conversation, and their body language unconsciously mirrors each other.
Motivational interviewing
a counseling strategy that meets clients where they are in the process of changing their financial behavior.
Pacing
a strategy whereby the counselor engages in “patterning verbal and nonverbal behavior to match the client.”
Paraphrasing
repeating back the client’s language in the counselor’s own words, thereby indicating active listening and ensuring that the counselor and the client are on the same page.
Planning
the process of committing to change and developing a plan to do so.
Positive psychology
a counseling strategy that focuses on the development of human strengths and virtues and is based on the idea that five psychological elements contribute to a flourishing life.
Preventive counseling
a counseling approach that combines the remedial and productive approaches.
Productive counseling
a counseling approach that is appropriate for clients who are financially stable but looking for better ways to use their resources.
Remedial counseling
a counseling approach used to address a problem.
Restating
using some of the client’s exact language - especially unique turns of phrase - to indicate active listening and help build rapport with the client.
Scaling questions
a type of questioning asking clients to assess an issue on a scale from 0 to 10.
Solution-Focused Brief Therapy (SFBT)
a counseling strategy that is a form of psychotherapy assuming that clients are ready and able to change, but need help recognizing how to do so.
Summarizing
a strategy that occurs when a counselor identifies key components of a session to ensure that she and her client agree on priority topics.
