Overview of the Role of a Counsellor
Counselling psychologists are considered to be mental health practitioners specialising in dealing with patients with emotional crises, behavioural disorders, anxiety, depression or stress-related issues. According to ErlinaYaumas et al., (2018), the initial responsibilities of the therapists or counsellors include providing the patients with consultations and therapy sessions significant for treating the individuals. Through significant communication and coping skills, the therapists attempt to promote behavioural changes and improve the mental health condition of the clients (Syafril, 2018). However, the whole procedure includes subsequent guidelines and procedures for the sessions. The essay aims to provide a critical reflection on the specific counselling skills and techniques used by the therapists based on a provided transcript. The ethical guidelines of client handling have been subsequently explained in the course of the essay with information from scholarly sources. The essay demonstrates the skills and techniques used by counsellors within a people-centred therapeutic approach while treating patients. The reflection further suggests alternative techniques to the implemented ones.
The counsellors are known to be playing a major role throughout the entire process of counselling. The significant individual is treated as the pivot leader within the specific circumstances. According to Getachew (2020), the counsellors attempt to substantiate the direct thinking to the clients or the counselee whilst analysing and interpreting the problems. The significant advising conducted by the counsellors is dependent on the subsequent assessment of the mental and behavioural changes experienced by the individuals. The basic counselling skills that are often reflected through the therapists within a session is to make the client comfortable with the setting and purpose of the sessions through strong rapport building. Rapport building is significantly essential for the counselling sessions for the clients to open up about their issues to the counsellor. According to Cooper (2018), among the core counselling skills and techniques of counselling, it has been noticed that transparency plays an important role in defining the course of action for the clients. Moreover, attending to the clients with absolute patience and attention plays a major role in strengthening the therapist-client relationship.
The person-centered approach to psychology is defined to be the counselling approach belonging to the humanistic school of therapy and was proposed by Carl Rogers (Woo et al., 2018). The core features of the person-centered approach are –
- Empathy
- Congruence
- Unconditional positive regard
Through the person-centered therapy sessions, the clients are taken on a journey of self-healing process whilst building the right kind of professional relationship with the therapist. According to Woo et al., (2018), it is followed as a personal growth model otherwise known as a non-directive therapy allowing the client to contemplate his or her shared thoughts and expression to find the root cause of the problem. Personal reflection is essential towards the end of the therapy or counselling sessions to measure the progress rate of the clients through the subsequent techniques and skills implemented by me in the process. Within this context, as the session reached its end, I demonstrated the technique of congruency and unconditional positive regard for the discussed scenario. According to Rønnestad et al., (2019), in the psychological domain, congruence is regarded as the condition in the therapeutic relationship which is essential in determining elements of assessment of shared experience to match accurately with the client’s experience within complete awareness. In terms of person-centered counselling, the counsellor’s congruence is regarded as a helpful measure to determine the growth initiated by the client through the therapy sessions. Simultaneously, unconditional positive regard can be determined as the offering of complete acceptance of the client’s behaviour and attributes within the therapy room. As suggested by Corey (2018), through unconditional positive regard, the clients are provided with a subsequent opportunity for the clients to contemplate their true feelings and experiences with a fresh perspective. It helps them to realize their strengths and weaknesses and incorporate these new attributes into problem-solving through self-assessment. Whenever the therapists can display unconditional acceptance the clients can process themselves as inherent and lovable human beings. It was essential for me to direct the information to him that the sessions would not be able to provide him with an immediate solution, but communicating with the session would be effective in finding better solutions to deal with the problems (Woo et al., 2018).
Discussion on the People-Centered Approach to Psychology and its Application in Real-Life Scenario
The list of basic skills and techniques that were demonstrated throughout the session with the client were-
- Rapport building and empathy
- Confidentiality and consent
- Active Listening
- Reframing or summarizing the statement with empathy
- Critically thinking in an empathetic way
- Being non-judgmental
- Congruency and Unconditional positive regard
At the beginning of the session, I concentrated on establishing a rapport with him through active listening and initiating a conversation with the client by asking questions about his feelings about the day. It was my responsibility to make him comfortable and relax his emotions by channelling empathy through our conversation. The exchange of pleasantries played an important role in ensuring that the client felt confident about the situation. It was followed by acknowledging the impending subject of confidentiality. Discussing the terms and conditions of a counselling session with the client is necessary at the beginning. As argued by Akhter et al., (2021), informed consent in counselling is essential to safeguard the professional terms of the relationship between the client and the psychologist. It can be defined as a legal and ethical term that needs to be discussed between the counsellor and counselee. I observed that after I discussed the terms and conditions of the therapy outlines with the client and helped him get a clear understanding that at times the collected information and the session analysis requires to be shared with a third party, he became a bit hesitant. However, after I assured him that if he does not agree to the terms then his information would be kept confidential, he was quite composed and relaxed than before (Kim & Lambie, 2018).
The session began with an exchange of open-ended questions about the client’s decision about the session. I actively listened to him as he began to explain his state of mind and share his concern related to his mental state. In terms of active listening, I tried to project the moments of deliberate silence as a nonverbal mode of communication to give space to my client. As he kept feeling that is being listened to with every detail, I noticed that his expression quality improved gradually as the session progressed. As suggested by Drobnic (2019), the next step included in the process of conducting the counselling session was that I conveyed by assessment of his issues with assured meaning by rephrasing his statements with subsequent empathy. Empathy is considered to be a pillar behind the psychological sense it is capable of allowing a therapist to build a significant therapeutic alliance while discovering the goals and perspective of the client. It is important for me that as a counsellor I develop the effective attentive qualities to assess the unique personality, characteristics and style of the clients in the most appropriate ways (Rønnestad et al., 2019). Empathy allowed me to discover various entities of the client’s mind from different levels.
Assessment of the Counselling Techniques Applied in the Session
As I apprehended the main thoughts and experiences which drove the client to his difficult state of mind, it helped him to contemplate his emotions with more sincerity. Then I advised him to have a conversation about the issues that have been bothering him with his family. Through this advice, I tried to demonstrate the technique of critical thinking in an empathetic manner. As opined by Fiske et al., (2019), while the client conveyed his issues to me, I have been analysing various primary and secondary solutions to approach the issue. Out of the options, I could infer into the advised him to discuss the matter with his family (Bennett-Levy & Finlay-Jones, 2018). I left the decision and choice to him to figure out whether he would be comfortable with discussing the matter with his partner or family.
The demonstrated skills and techniques in the counselling session with the client have been effective in helping the person with a self-reflective approach. However, I believe that I could have taken certain actions from a different perspective. For example, when I decided to advise the client to share his feelings with his family, I could see he was uncomfortable. I should have been more open to that situation, rather than directly advising him, I should have clarified with the client to know whether he had already tried. In this situation, I failed to rely on the guidelines of the people-centered therapy sessions and invoked my perspective. According to Supriyanto et al., (2019), in this context, I needed to be non-judgmental as close connections like families could be a sensitive topic for clients. Transparency within families plays an intricate part in reducing mental stress and anxiety. Even though it is important I should have been careful. As suggested by Kim and Lambie (2018), counsellors are condemned to be opinionated about the personal lives and choices of the clients as declared within the ground rules of psychology. Whenever the clients feel judged they seem to close their emotional exchange and the session does not be effective. There was a high possibility that deep-rooted negative emotions or trauma of the client could have been stirred and wasted the session.
Conclusion
From the above analysis, it can be concluded that counselling is an integral part of defining a course of a solution to address the regular mental issues faced by individuals. Counselling provides a significant chance for people to contemplate the various problems and behavioural disorders they might be facing in their lives. The counselling sessions are conducted within a subsequent set of guidelines. Out of which the primary skills and techniques that are often demonstrated by the psychologists in the present times. The techniques that I have implemented while addressing the provided scenario of the session were empathy, active listening, congruency and unconditional positive regard. Moreover, at the initial level of the session, I focused on rapport building with the client by asking open-ended questions and gradually it progressed into close-ended questions to let the client reflect on their conscience and address the issues with a different perspective. Most importantly, the session was carried on based on informed consent from the client.
References
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https://pure.roehampton.ac.uk/ws/files/869417/2018_Psychology_of_goals_AF.pdf
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