skills: basic counseling concepts and skills Flashcards
Wellness
A balance between the mind, body, and spirit, resulting in positive well-being. The field of counseling stems from a wellness perspective, viewing the client as searching for a balanced lifestyle rather than being mentally ill
Therapeutic Alliance
The relationship between the client and the professional counselor. The therapeutic alliance depends largely on the counselor’s ability to express warmth and empathy, confront when necessary, make accurate interpretations and reflections, listen actively, work with clients to set goals, and recognize and reinforce client successes
Resistance
Historically, this term has been defined as a client’s unwillingness to work on problems and initiate change in their lives. Today most counselors have moved away from the idea that resistance is the client’s fault. Instead resistance is viewed as a product of the counseling relationship
Three Stages of Counseling:
- relationship-building,
- action/intervention,
- termination
Five Stages of Change:
- precontemplation,
- contemplation,
- preparation,
- action,
- maintenance
Consultation
A formal process by which professional helpers and individuals/groups form a relationship voluntarily to solve a problem. Typically, the professional helper (consultant) assists the individual/group (consultee) with defining and resolving an issue. The three primary models of consultation are the triadic-dependent model, the collaborative-dependent model, and the collaborative-interdependent model.
consultation process
The process of consulting can be divided into four steps: (a) The consultant establishes rapport with the consultee, explains the consultation process, and defines the responsibilities of each member. (b) The consultant works with the consultee to assess and define the problem in clear, specific terms and to set a goal related to the identified problem. (c) The consultant and consultee brainstorm, evaluate, select, and implement solutions. (d) The consultant and consultee determine the solution’s effectiveness and whether it makes sense to terminate the consultative relationship because the goal has been achieved or to return to the drawing board to devise and try another strategy.
Psychological First Aid
A crisis response method that focuses first on meeting individuals’ survival needs (e.g., food, water, shelter, and safety), then on meeting their psychological needs, and finally on establishing support networks
Twelve Basic Counseling Skills:
- attending,
- questioning,
- reflecting,
- paraphrasing,
- summarizing,
- empathic understanding,
- confronting,
- interpreting,
- self-disclosure,
- feedback,
- giving information
attending
A basic counseling skill that involves the counselor’s use of verbal and nonverbal behaviors to convey to the client that the counselor is actively listening and is interested in client self-disclosures. Nonverbal attending behaviors include eye contact, an open stance, head nodding, gestures, and silence; verbal attending behaviors include “door openers” (e.g., “Tell me more about that”) and minimal encouragers (e.g., “Okay, I see”).
questioning
A basic counseling skill in which counselors ask open ended (invite client to elaborate on a topic) and closed-ended (gather factual/ specific information and elicit a minimal response) questions to obtain further information from clients, often for clarification or to encourage deeper exploration of topics
reflecting
A basic counseling skill that involves verbal responses to clients that indicate that the professional counselor understands their emotions, thoughts, or the meaning behind their disclosures
paraphrasing
A basic counseling skill that involves repeating back the essence of what a client has said in the counselor’s own words to convey understanding, check the accuracy of the counselor’s comprehension, and summarize the significant elements that have been disclosed by the client.
summarizing
A basic counseling skill that involves condensing the important aspects discussed over a substantial period of time into a succinct synopsis. Summarizing is often used at the end of a session to recap the important topics that were discussed, but it can also be used at the beginning and middle of a session to tie together important themes, patterns, feelings, facts, and plans.
empathic understanding
One of the core counseling conditions; the counselor’s ability to understand and effectively communicate back a client’s thoughts, feelings, and worldview
