This essay evaluates the counselling skills used during a 30 minute integrative counselling session with a male client aiming to combine strengths of person-centred theory, attachment theory and cognitive-behavioural therapy. It starts by offering a case formulation based on Padesky and Greenberger (1995), as well as Lazarus’ (1973) multimodal assessment template the BASIC ID (cited in Prochaska and Norcross, 2003, p.496), of a married young male client called Eric, who is suffering from anxiety and marital relationship problems triggered by unemployment and influenced by existing difficulties within the client's relationship to his mother. The essay then outlines and critically evaluates counselling skills such as body language, silences and reflective communication skills amongst others used during Eric’s third session while highlighting areas of improvement and identifying alternative options. The essay concludes with offering and exploring possible directions for future counselling sessions. Case formulation Drawing on Padesky and Greenberger (1995, p.27-28), accurate diagnosis and case conceptualisation, here referred to as case formulation, are indispensable for outlining a successful treatment plan and establishing continuous treatment progress. The aim of case formulation is to outline the client’s problems in a coherent and logical manner, while providing shared guidelines for therapy, which can be as individualised as necessary depending on the client’s unique requirements (Westbrook, Kennerley and Kirk, 2011, p.63-97). Even though not all factors were addressed during this session, the case formulation used for this counselling session consists of cognitive, behavioural, emotional, environmental, socio-cultural, phys... ... middle of paper ... ...ss. Nelson-Jones, R. (2008) Basic Counselling Skills – A Helper’s Manual, 2nd edition, London: Sage Publications. Padesky, C and Greenberger, D. (1995) Clinician’s Guide to Mind Over Mood, London: Guildford Press. Palmer, S. and Laungani, P. (1998) Counselling in a Multicultural Society,London: Sage Publications. Prochaska, J.O. and Norcross, J.C (2003) Systems of Psychotherapy: a transtheoretical analysis, 5th edition, Pacific Grove, California: Brooks/ Cole. Rogers, C. (1957) The necessary and sufficient conditions of therapeutic personality change, Journal of Consulting Psychology, Volume 21, Pages 95-103. Sutton, J. and Stewart, W. (2008) Learning to Counsel, 3rd edition, Oxford: How to Books Ltd. Westbrook, D., Kennerley, H. and Kirk, J. (2011) An Introduction to Cognitive Behaviour Therapy – Skills and Application, 2nd edition, London: Sage Publications.
Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) is a method of correcting invalid thought patterns to a more positive view of the person and their place in their world. Some people do not believe that Cognitive Behavioral Therapy is a real treatment for depression, claiming it is a form of positive thinking ("The Daily Mail," 2009). On the opposite end of the spectrum, others argue that Cognitive Behavioral Therapy should be used in all therapies for depression as it allows the patient to take an active role in their treatment. The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate the benefit of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy as a viable treatment of depression, either as a stand-alone therapy or in conjunction with other therapies.
The main action of the cognitive behavioural therapist is to recognise the client’s problems in a cognitive way (Curwen, Ruddell, and Palmer, 2000).
Corey, G. (2013). Theory and practice of counseling and psychotherapy (9th Edition). Belmont, CA: Brooks/Cole Publishing.
1) Corey, Gerald Theory and Practice of Counseling and Psychotherapy, 6th edition, Brooks and Cole, Stamford, CT p. 153.
The counselor accomplishes the above by expressing empathy, developing discrepancies, going along with resistance and supporting self-efficacy. Moreover, the counselor guides the client toward a solution that will lead to permanent posi...
Burton, A. (1959). Case studies in counseling and psychotherapy (Prentice-Hall psychology series). Englewood Cliffs, N.J: Prentice-Hall.
Nelson, P. (2007) an Easy Introduction to Egan’s skilled Helper Solution Focussed Counselling Approach. Available at: http://mystrongfamily.co.uk/downloads/PDFs/SFP-EasyIntroToEgan.pdf [Accessed 13th February 2014]
Counseling skills has provided me with a valuable insight into the helping relationship and how it is both created and maintained in order to encourage growth and development in the client. The factors involved within the helping relationship include considering Roger’s core conditions, congruence, unconditional positive regard and empathy as the three main characteristics necessary in a helping relationship. In order to fully incorporate all three of Roger’s core conditions, I as the counselor must be self-aware, as a lack of self-awareness may inhibit truly listening and understanding the client; self-awareness can be enhanced through exercises such as Johari’s window. Counseling skills such as body language and active listening also plays a role within encouraging the client to open up and can help me as the counselor convey empathy.
The counselling process is one that may last for as little as one session or for years, it is within the middles stages of the helping relationship that particular counselling skills such as a focusing, challenging and immediacy can be implemented, as well as use of advanced empathy that can be applied due to increased familiarity with a speaker. Many actions may occur within middles stage of the helping relationship such as transitions that occur for a multitude of reasons and the outcome of which can vary based on the attitude of the speaker. Self-awareness remains vital throughout the entire counselling relationship due to the continual influence of empathy in the helping relationship and remaining aware my own motives and values when using advanced empathy and specific counselling skills. Ethics and boundaries are also involved within the counselling process as within a counselling relationship, I as the counsellor, must be careful with the balance or expenditure of power when challenging.
Understanding the counseling session from the client’s perspective is a very important aspect in the development of a therapeutic relationship. A clinician must be an excellent listener, while being to pay attention to the client’s body language, affect and tone. The dynamics in the counseling session that is beneficial to the client include the recognition of the pain that the client is feeling. The detrimental part of this includes a misunderstanding of the real issues, a lack of consideration of the cultural aspects of the client, and a lack of clinical experience or listening skills. In this presentation, we will discuss the positive and negative aspects of the counseling session from the client’s perspective which includes the client’s attitudes, feelings, and emotions of the counseling session. We will next examine the propensity of the client to reveal or not reveal information to the counselor, and how transference, and counter-transference can have an effect on the counselor-client relationship.
This essay will attempt to highlight and evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of the three main theories of counselling within the module covered this term. The three approaches in discussion are psychodynamics, cognitive behavioural and humanistic.
Corey, G. (2011). Theory and practice of counseling and psychotherapy. (ninth ed., pp. 291-301). Belmont, CA: Brooks/Cole.
In this part of the assignment, I will be reviewing the strengths and weaknesses that were shown when I was using counselling skills on my client. I believe that there were more strengths when I was showing counselling skills compared to the weaknesses that there were.
The following essay will look at what it takes to be an effective and professional counsellor through discussing what counselling is, its processes, the setting in which it is undertaken, the characteristics, necessary skills needed and the ethics involved in counselling.