WEEK 9 - microskills Flashcards
What are the advanced microskills?
- Reframing
- Challenging (identifying incongruencies)
- Exploring Options
- Therapist Self-disclosure
- Normalising
- Externalising
- Orientating and Influencing Questions
- Deconstructing Question
What is reframing?
- Supporting a client to understand a situation in a new light with a new awareness.
- To place an experience or situation in a different frame which fits the ‘facts’ equally well or even better & thereby changes its entire meaning
Why do we use reframing
- helping client to see a different perspective
- presenting an expanded view of the situation
- reframing behaviour in an adaptive way
- highlighting alternative possibilities
- reframing loaded words and phrases
- expanding perspectives of the self
- Redefine problems
What is Challenging /Identifying Incongruencies
Confrontation is not a direct, harsh challenge. Think of it, rather, as a more gentle skill that involves listening to the client carefully and respectfully; and, then, seeking to help the client examine self or situation more fully
Why do we use identifying incongruities?
- Assist clients to increase their self-awareness.
- Highlight discrepancies that clients have previously been unaware of.
- Provides space for exploration
- Provide clarity
Things to be mindful of in identifying incongruities
- It is done in relativity with the underlying strength of the relationship you share.
- Is offered thoughtfully, and not in a way which is likely to be perceived as judgmental or reprimanding
What does self discloure make possible?
Provides a role model for appropriate social interaction (important for clients who may experience social anxiety
Helps the client feel as though they are not alone
Can reduce the power differential between counsellor and client, and reduce intimidation
Provides validation – can help the client to feel “normal
Builds rapport and trust
Human to Human Connection – I-thou relationship
What is Externalising
- Principle or philosophy that refuses to locate problems within people – refuses to pathologist
- The problem is the problem, the person is not the problem.
Why do we use Externlising
- Externalising establishes a context where people experience themselves as separate from the problemwhere the problem no longer speaks to them of their identity or the ‘truth’ about themselves.
- The effects of labelling and pathologising are diminished.
- Externalising reduces guilt and blame, yet leaves room for responsibility.
- Externalising creates space for people to have aview/position in relation to the problem and creates ways for people to take action as opposed to being overwhelmed by the problem.
- Externalising creates space for people to join around problems and their effects.
- Externalising makes visible the politics/context of people’s experience and meaning making
Things to be mindful of in Externalising
- Intentions & theoretical underpinning
- Not blaming someone else – eg not the child but the parent
- Not undermining the problem – providing a way to speak about the problem
- We separate selves from problem – not from responsibility – idea is that we invite people to take a position to reduce the effects of the problem on self and others
What is Normalising
- is a process that emphasises that the experiences a person finds upsetting exist within the range of normal functioning
Why do we use Normalising?
- Make the feeling of distress normal and understandable
- Reduces stigma
- Sense that you are not alone
- Can help reduce secondary emotions – eg being a nxiousabout feeling anxious
- Support creation of a safe space
Things to be mindful of in normalising
- Who/what determines what is a ‘normal’ response
- Just because something is ‘normal’ doesn’t necessarily make it healthy or good for the growth and happiness of the individual, and just because something is ‘abnormal’ doesn’t necessarily make it unhealthy or bad for the growth and happiness of the individual.
- Invalidating, reducing, ending meaning making process, trivalising
What is exploring of options
*a therapeutic process where the counsellor and client work together to identify and evaluate different choices or solutions to a particular issue or problem.
- Identify the issue, generate options, evaluate options
Why do we use exploring of options
- Support clients to move beyond preemptive conclusion that there is ‘no solution’ or only two polar possibilities
- Support clients to take an active role in problem solving, goal setting and decision making
- Encourage clients to consider different perspectives, make informed choices, and develop skills for coping with challenges in the future
