Unit 7: Working In A Counselling Relationship

Question 1

What are the 10 counselling skills that gladding recommends as useful in the understanding and action phases of the counselling process?

Answer 1

Changing perceptions, leading, multi focussed responding, accurate empathy, self-disclosure, immediacy, humor, confrontation, contracting, rehearsal

Question 2

Seeing things in only one way or from one perspective or being fixated on the idea that this particular situation or attribute is the issue

Answer 2

Functional fixity

Question 3

A technique that offers the client another probable and positive viewpoint or perspective on the situation

Answer 3

Reframing

Question 4

Explain the counsellor skill changing perceptions

Answer 4

Counsellors can help clients change distorted or unrealistic objectives by offering them the opportunity to explore thoughts and desires within a safe, accepting, and nonjudgmental environment. By paying attention to both verbal and nonverbal metaphors, counsellors can help clients become more aware of both where they are and where they wish to be.

Perceptions commonly change through the process of reframing, helping the client see another probable and positive viewpoint or perspective on the situation and helps clients become more aware of situational factors associated with behaviour

Question 5

Changing client perceptions requires a high degree of persuasive skills and some direction from the counselor, such input is known as:

Answer 5

Leading

Question 6

Describe the counsellor skill leading

Answer 6

Input from the counsellor or deliberate behaviours counsellors engage in for the benefit of their clients. Counsellors anticipate where their clients are and where they are likely to go and then respond accordingly. Counsellors are like a good quarterback that anticipates where the receiver will be on the field and throws the ball to that spot

Examples of leads are silence, acceptance, paraphrasing, which are most appropriate at the beginning of the counselling process. Persuasion is more appropriate in the understanding and action phases
Minimal leads-minimal encourages such as hmmm yes or I hear you
Maximum leads-such as confrontation, more challenging and should be employed only after a solid relationship has been established

Question 7

These type of responses focus on a clients feelings

Answer 7

Affective responses

Question 8

These responses focus on actions

Answer 8

Behavioural responses

Question 9

These responses focus on thought

Answer 9

Cognitive responses

Question 10

Describe the counsellor skill of multifocused responding

Answer 10

Counsellors can enhance their effectiveness by remembering that individuals receive input from their worlds differently and that preferred styles influence perceptions and behavior. People have preferences for the way they process information through their senses.
Some experience the world visually: they see what is happening
Some experience the world primarily auditory: they hear the world around them
Others are kinaesthetically oriented: they feel situations as though physically in touch with them

Question 11

Describe the counsellor scale accurate empathy

Answer 11

Accurate empathy is achieved on both levels of primary empathy and advanced empathy, when counsellor see clients worlds from the clients point of view and are able to communicate this understanding back.

Two factors that make empathy possible are: realizing that an infinite number of feelings does not exist, and having a personal security so that you can let yourself go into the world of this other person and still know that you can return to your own world. Everything you’re feeling is “as if”

Accurate primary empathy involves communicating a basic understanding of what the client is feeling and the experiences and behaviours underlying these feelings. It helps establish the counselling relationship, gather data, and clarify problems

Empathy involves three elements: perceptiveness, know-how, and assertiveness
Accurate advanced empathy reflects not only with the client states overtly but also what they imply or state incompletely

Question 12

A conscious, intentional technique in which clinicians share information about their lives outside the counselling relationship

Answer 12

Self-disclosure

Question 13

Describe the counsellor skill disclosure

Answer 13

Making oneself known to another person by revealing personal information can help establish trust and facilitate the counselling relationship. Reciprocal self-disclosure is called the dyadic effect.

Client self-disclosure is necessary for successful counselling to occur, yet it is not always necessary for counsellors to be self disclosing and when it occurs, care must be taken to match disclosure to the clients needs.

Counsellor self disclosure serves to principal functions: modelling and developing a new perspective

Question 14

Focuses on the here and now and the therapeutic relationship from both the perspective of how the client and counsellor feel. It involves a counsellors and the clients understanding and communicating of what is going on between them in the helping relationship, particularly feelings, impressions, and expectations

Answer 14

Immediacy

Question 15

Describe the counsellor skill immediacy

Answer 15

There are basically three kinds of immediacy:

1. Overall relationship immediacy-how are you and I doing?
2. Immediacy that focuses on some particular event in a session-what’s going on between you and me right now?
3. Self-involving statements, for example, present-tents, personal responses to a client that are sometimes challenging

Immediacy is best used in a directionless relationship, where there is tension, where there is a question of trust, when there is considerable social distance between counsellor and client, where there is client dependency, where there is counter dependency, when there is an attraction between counsellor and client

Question 16

Involves giving and incongruent or unexpected response to a question or situation that requires both sensitivity and timing on the part of the counsellor

Answer 16

Humour

Question 17

Describe the counsellor skill humour

Answer 17

Should never be aimed at demeaning anyone, but should be used to build bridges between counsellors and clients. It can circumvent clients resistance, build rapport, dispel tension, help clients distance themselves from psychological pain, and aid in the increase of a clients self efficacy

Question 18

Challenging a client to examine, modify, or control an aspect of behaviour that is currently nonexistent or improperly used. Sometimes involves giving metacommunication feedback that is at variance with what the client wants or expects and this type of response may be inconsistent with the clients perception of self or circumstances

Answer 18

Confrontation

Question 19

Explain the counselling skill confrontation

Answer 19

Can help people see more clearly what is happening, what the consequences are, and how they can assume responsibility for taking action to change in ways that can lead to a more effective life and better and fairer relationships with others.

Appropriate confrontation produces growth and encourages and honest examination of oneself. It may actually be detrimental to the client if the counsellor fails to confront. Avoiding confrontation of the clients behaviour is known as the MUM effect and results in the counsellor being less effective than he or she otherwise would be

Question 20

There are two aspects of this counselling skill. One focusses on the processes involved in reaching a goal, the other concentrates on the final outcome. In goalsetting, the counsellor operates from a theoretical base that directs his or her actions. The client learns to change ways of thinking, feeling, and behaving to obtain goals.

Answer 20

Contracting

Question 21

Describe the counselling skill contracting

Answer 21

It is useful and time saving for counsellors and clients to work on goals through a contract system which let’s both parties participate in determining direction in counselling and evaluating change. It helps them be more specific.

Question 22

Once a contract is set up, the counsellor can help the client maximize the chance of fulfilling it by getting him or her to ____ or practice designated behaviour

Answer 22

Rehearse

Me also include assigning homework between sessions to help clients practice the skills learned in the counselling sessions and generalize such skills to relevant areas of their lives

Question 23

Requires the client to verbalize or act out what he or she is going to do

Answer 23

Overt rehearsal

Question 24

Imagining or reflecting on the desired goal

Answer 24

Covert rehearsal

Question 25

What is a counselor-client contract? What are the reasons for using a counselor-client contract?

Answer 25

It is working on goals through a contract system. Such a system let’s both parties participate in determining direction in counselling and evaluating change and helps them be more specific. It is useful and time saving to use contracts

Question 26

What are five advantages to using contracts?

Answer 26

1. Provides a written record of goals the counsellor and client have agreed to pursue and the course of action to be taken
2. The formal nature of a contract and its time limits may act as motivators for a client who tends to procrastinate
3. If the contract is broken down into definable sections, a client may get a clear feeling that problems can be solved
4. A contract puts the responsibility for any change on the client and thereby has the potential to empower the client and make him or her more responsive to the environment and more responsible for his or her behaviours
5. The contract system, by specifically outlining the numbers of sessions to be held, ensures that client will return to counselling regularly

Question 27

When the same ground is covered over and over again in counselling

Answer 27

Circular counselling

Question 28

The clients projection of past or present feelings, attitudes, or desires onto the counsellor

Answer 28

Transference

Can be used in 2 ways: help counsellors understand clients better, employed as a way of resolving the clients problems

Question 29

Refers to the counsellors projected emotional reaction to or behaviour toward the client

Answer 29

Countertransference

This reaction may be a rational, interpersonally stressful, and neurotic emanating from the counsellors own resolved issues. Is often harmful to, threatening, challenging, and/or taxing to the counsellors coping resources

Takes several forms, the most common are: feeling a constant desire to please the client, identifying with the problems of the client so much that one loses objectivity, developing sexual or romantic feelings toward the client, giving advice compulsively, wanting to develop a social relationship with the client

Question 30

A form of countertransference in which the counsellor loses his or her ability to remain emotionally distant from the client

Answer 30

Overidentification

Question 31

A form of countertransference in which the counsellor becomes emotionally removed from the client. May express itself in counsellor behaviour that is aloof, non-empathetic, hostile cold or antagonistic

Answer 31

Disidentification

Question 32

Describe the processes involved as a counselling relationship progresses. What are the main objectives of these processes?

Answer 32

Clients arrive in counselling with certain areas of their lives open or understood and other areas hidden or suppressed. The Johari window is a conceptual device used to represent the way in which most individuals enter the counselling relationship.
The objectives of the first two phases of counselling or to help clients relax enough to tell their story and discover information located in blind areas of themselves, regions about which they have been unaware. Once they obtain a better understanding of these areas, informed clients can decide how to proceed. If they are successful in their work, the extend the dimensions of the area of free activity while shrinking the dimensions of the more restrictive areas.
Johari window: includes the area of free activity that is known to self and known to others
The avoided or hidden area, the self hidden from others but known to self.
The blind area, blind to self and seen by others
The area of unknown activity that is not known to self and not known to others