The Role of Basic Counselling Skills in Effective Counselling
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The Role of Basic Counselling Skills in Effective Counselling
Introduction
Counseling is a broad term in the 21st century. It involves a collaborative effort between the client and the counselor. Councilors help clients identify their goals and solutions to the problems causing turmoil. Many clients under counseling contain strength in their self-esteem, improved communication abilities, good behavioral changes, and optimal mental health. Clients should understand going to see the counselor is the first step. The clients recover from counseling sessions once their problems become manageable or resolved. Positive outcomes are less predicted in some therapy techniques (Xia et al., 2021). The positive outcomes lie in the counselor’s ability to provide enthusiasm confidence and show beliefs of the patient’s ability to change. It is hard to change people; the counselor needs to encourage the clients to move towards the change. Most clients in the developed world are likely to achieve their goals when there is a healthy and trusted relationship between the clients and their therapists. The techniques used by counselors to engage the client acts as an effective tool for helping their relationships. There are important basic counseling skills for the therapist to apply. Therefore, it is important to acknowledge the role of basic counseling skills, including listening, empathy, genuineness, and open questions in effective counseling and their risks and limitations.
Listening
People should understand the importance of listening while communicating with people. People who efficiently listen characterize their actions with the help of body language and posture. Effective listening in counseling is attending. Attending means providing to the therapist you have their attention, and you care about what they are saying. Some of the key factors showing therapists are attending include making eye contact, eliminating anything from the room that may distract the session, nodding of head appropriately to the therapist to confirm effective listening, making encouraging verbalizations, leaning forward to show the client you are engaged, and siting with the right posture.
According to Liu & Gao (2021) non-verbal communication is vital in the developed world as they consist of eighty percent of the message. Therapists use attending to show the clients they care about them. However, although they are many things to deploy for the therapist and client to concentrate on, minds can be far off regardless of body motions. Therapists need assurance by understanding verbal and non-verbal communication presented by the client. The process is observation. The main source of information in counseling is content and processes (Xia et al., 2021). What the client is saying is the content. Deeper insights results from the therapist’s ability to carefully listen to what the client is conveying the words and expressions used. Some of the therapists are quick to determine what the client says. Counselors, therefore, need to have the ability to remember what the client says and clarify with the patient in case of anything. As for the process, it is non-verbal communication showing how the content is presented. Clients’ awareness is essential in the developed world as therapists do not require consciousness regarding non-verbal communication. The concept includes recurring themes, interactions, and body language. Generally, listening is an effective process while assessing the role of basic counseling skills in effective client guidance.
Empathy
Empathy is not all about identifying a client suffering similar experiences as yours. It is hard for the therapist to know how the client feels. However, it is vital to recognize different experiences and communicate back to the client to clarify what they have said. Communicating empathy contains their skills. The skills include; non-verbal and verbal attending, paraphrasing the client’s views to capture the right messages, and reflecting on patient feelings. Empathy also initiates the process of attending. Attending communicate to the client, the therapist understands their sides of the story and pays attention in a caring and helpful way. On the other side, paraphrasing is an essential tool while conducting the counseling process. Therapists need to focus on keywords and the client’s main ideas (Sherman & Kilby, 2021). It is essential to communicate the message back to the client in a rephrased and shortened form. The step is vital in the counseling process as it shows the therapist has heard what the client is communicating and is trying to understand them deeper.
There are tools for therapists to use while initiating the paraphrasing process. It includes; listening and recalling everything expressed by the client. The process is essential as it shows the therapist did not miss any important detail. Therapist needs to have a clear knowledge of identifying the content aspect of the information. The process involves the therapist’s motive of identifying the event, situation, or idea communicated by the client (Sherman & Kilby, 2021). It is important to use keywords and the main idea used by the patient to repeat back in the rephrasing process. Nonetheless, the reception check needs proper execution. The process allows the client to deny or concur to the therapist’s paraphrase. It is vital to have a flashback of the patient’s feelings. Therapist needs to make fair deductions concerning the emotional feelings of the client. Therefore, it is important to use the same language as the client’s as their feelings are real, and wrong word choices can harm the process.
Genuineness
Genuineness is an essential component in counseling processes. The client and the therapist need to be honest, be themselves, and become comfortable. The client’s and therapist’s actions need to reflect the component they are saying. It is normal to find clients and therapists are saying the right things, yet their minds are far off. Genuineness is essential, especially from the client to the therapist (Iheanacho et al., 2022). Behavior should match with what the two-party communicates. For instance, if the therapist decides to solve the client’s issues, they should show comfort while navigating to their stories. However, if the therapist acts surprised when talking about the issue in private, it can influence the client’s growth process. Therefore, the therapist should show genuineness while navigating through the client’s issues.
Open Questions
Open questions are important in facilitating counseling processes. As a questioning method, it allows the client to clarify their thoughts and feelings. The goal of open questions involves guiding deep explorative thoughts. The concept applies to clients fearing to express themselves. If the client feely explores their deep feelings, the component can be passed to ask intentional and purposeful questions. Every therapist contains their goals, and drilling the client is not one of them. Clients need the type of method to help them work through their issues rather than interrogating them. It is vital to follow them with paraphrased patient responses for them to be encouraged and share more about their situations. Most of the open questions cannot be answered by a few words. They encourage the client to speak while offering valid information to the counselor who gathers them (Gwo et al., 2022). Most open questions begin with what, why, how, or what could. “How” questions allow clients to air their feelings. “What” questions contribute to the emergence of facts. “When” inquiries focus on information based on occurrence timeframe. “Where” questions include information based on the analysis of events. “Why” questions offer the counselor a clear overview of the information leading to the event. Most therapies ensure care while asking “why” questions. Therefore, most of those questions lead to the client getting provoked and feeling as if they need to justify themselves.
Conclusion
Conclusively, councilors help clients to identify their goals and solutions to the problems causing turmoil. The clients recover from counseling sessions once their problems become manageable or resolved. Positive outcomes are less predicted in some therapy techniques. The techniques used by counselors to engage the client acts as an effective tool for helping their relationships (Liu & Gao, 2021). There are important basic counseling skills for therapists to apply. People who efficiently listen characterize their actions with the help of body language and posture. While carrying therapy sessions, it is essential to make eye contact, eliminate anything from the room that may distract the session, nod of head appropriately to the therapist to confirm effective listening, make encouraging verbalizations, lean forward to show the client you are engaged, and siting with the right posture.
Therapists need assurance by understanding verbal and non-verbal communication presented by the client. Counselors need to have the ability to remember what the client says and clarify with the patient in case of anything. It is hard for the therapist to know how the client feels. Therapists need to focus on keywords and the client’s main ideas. It is essential to communicate the message back to the client in a rephrased and shortened form. A therapist needs to have a clear knowledge of identifying the content aspect of the information. It is vital to have a flashback of the patient’s feelings. Therapist needs to make fair deductions concerning the emotional feelings of the client. The client and the therapist need to be honest, be themselves, and become comfortable. Behavior should match with what the two-party communicates. The entire counseling process is facilitated with open-ended questions. The process is essential since it allows the client to clarify their thoughts and feelings.References
Gwo, E. A., Huang, K., Pi, H & Li, X. (2022). Extension Psychology & Counseling Based on Extenics. Procedia Computer Science, 199, 845-851. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.procs.2022.01.105
Iheanacho, O. C., Adeyeri, O & Eze, H. I. U. (2022). Evolving role of pharmacy technicians in pharmaceutical care services: Involvement in counselling and medication reviews. Exploratory Research in Clinical and Social Pharmacy, 5. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.rcsop.2022.100113
Liu, J & Gao, L. (2021). Analysis of topics and characteristics of user reviews on different online psychological counseling methods. International Journal of Medical Informatics, 147. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijmedinf.2020.104367
Sherman, A. K & Kilby, J. C. (2021). Genetic Counseling and Risk Communication. Reference Module in Neuroscience and Biobehavioral Psychology. https://doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-12-818697-8.00184-9
Xia, W., Li, W. C. H., Liang, T., Luo, Y., Ho, K. L. L., Cheung, T. A & Song, P. (2021). Structured online training for university students to deliver peer-led addiction counselling for young drug abusers in China: Effect on improving knowledge, attitude, confidence, and skills. Patient Education and Counseling. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pec.2021.07.038
The Role of Basic Counselling Skills in Effective Counselling
