COUNSELLING SKILLS
INTRODUCTION TO COUNSELING AND CHILD PLAY THERAPY
John McGuiness (1998) defines counseling as a helping profession that uses the safety engendered by a special kind of relationship to help individuals to get access to greater part of their resources as a means of responding to the challenges of their life. It uses specific skills and techniques in that relation to help people become more competent, more contented, and more innovative. Counseling does not deal primarily with the mentally ill but with normal individuals facing all the difficulties involved in domestic, work related and social life. It is about helping people grow in emotional distress and health.
From the above definition, the following inferences can be made: -
That counseling is a generally aimed at helping (it’s a helping profession). It entails Relationship, Process with Specific skills
Some of the specific goals of counseling are helping individual’s access greater part personal resources, Help individuals become more competent, more contented and more creative, help peoples manage emotional and health fitness.
RELATIONSHIP
This is a professional working relationship between the counselor and the counselee. This relationship should be based on mutual trust. The counselor should ensure that the relationship is established otherwise therapy will not take place.
Rogers (1961) says, “If I can provide a certain type of relationship the other person will discover within himself the capacity to use that relationship for growth or change”.
The counselor needs three basic attitudes called core conditions by Rogers to maintain the relationship. The conditions are genuineness, empathy, and unconditional positive regard.
THE PROCE...
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...g trauma e.g. Death of a loved one, pet, all forms of abuse.
• Painful or frightening medical procedures.
• Witnessing a crime, violence, or abuse of other children
• Disasters such as Accidents, bomb blast and flooding
• Terminal illness, disability, living with a terminally ill parent.
• Divorce/separation of parents
• Parent-child relationship
• Relationship conflicts e.g. between child & parents, siblings, teachers, peers.
• Change of environment e.g. school, residence, and country.
• Developmental issues like sexuality, teen pregnancy self concept, puberty
REFERENCES
Axline Virginia. (1969). Dibs: In search of self.
West, Janet (1996). Child Centered Play therapy (2nd ed). Britain: Arnold:
Rogers, Carl. (1961). On Becoming a Person: A Therapist's View of Psychotherapy. London: Constable.
McGuiness J (1998). Counseling in schools. London: Cassell.
Sometimes individuals consider becoming counselors after overcoming some major life challenge such as addiction or a history of bad relationships. Perhaps an individual has encountered a particularly effective counselor or therapist and has a desire to follow in those footsteps. Others may have had a bad experience with counseling and concluded that it can be done better. People do not think of this work so much as a job, or even as a career. More typically, a constellation of life experiences that demand explanation and a sense that others seek one out for assistance and emotional sustenance become driving forces leading one toward the counseling profession” (An invitation to). .
Counseling is the verbal way to describe therapy. Therapy is the cooperative venture for challenges the clients in translation for the insights in action to the real world. Therapy is used for the reviving of a person’s life, and the verbal form of counseling gives a client a sense of purpose to continue on in life and to establish an sense of being in a better place in the future. Counseling gives direction not advice, therapy gives the therapist a choice on how to manage their clients
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...
Counselling and psychotherapy are frequently used interchangeably, however the Psychotherapist and Counsellors Association of Western Australian [PACAWA] (2005) distinguishes between the two. PACAWA (2005) states that “counselling usually focuses on particular issues or concerns for an individual” and aims to help individuals “develop a clearer understanding of their concerns and their context, both personally and situational”, whilst “psychotherapy focuses more on issues of personal meaning, relationship to self, and the impact of past events and trauma” and aims to help individuals “gain a deeper understanding of themselves and to overcome core issues or blocks that persistently disrupt their lives.” A counsellor will help individuals on “dealing with feelings and reactions they are experiencing, and will assist them in accessing their own creativity to find a way of moving forward” opposed to a psychotherapist, who “works with individuals to gain an understanding of what is happening for that individual” (PACAWA, 2005). PACAWA acknowledges that ther...
People deal with different life situation’s every day and counseling is a great way to cope with situations that are hard to cope by oneself. Counselors are faced with these situations and it is extremely important to be prepared and have the proper training to be able to handle a client’s situation to the best of their ability. There are rules and regulations to help keep counselors on a professional level to help guide with situations such as confidentiality, supervisor and trainee relationships, and diversity and clinical experience.
...ing silence, paraphrasing and reflection of feelings, as well as non-verbal skills such as body-language and active listening are all used in order to allow the client to introspect and work with their problems in a safe environment, the role of the counselor within the relationship being to support the client and help them to reach their true potential by expressing emotions and thoughts that they can’t express outside of the helping relationship, whether it be for fear of rejection or some other reason.
A counsellor requires many developed skills in order to provide the highest quality practice for their clients. As a beginner in counselling, I am beginning to develop these skills and put them to practice efficiently. This report reviews my own strengths and weaknesses of the development of these counselling skills; providing an analysation of these strengths and weaknesses with examples of how I have improved these skills and areas of improvement with next steps. Also, a small assessment of how each of the counselling skills affects my personal self-development.
A counsellor should discuss with his clients about the optimum ways to reach their goals and if there are any concerned risks or wrong doing during work. Meantime, he should take all responsibilities over the ways he provides appropriate situations for his clients to reach their goals, and act promptly to eliminate or reduce any possible harm happened and apologise to the client. Furthermore, inform and discuss that with the management, and investigate and review with the supervision to prevent that from happening in future. Finally, monitoring the client experiences and the effects of work on them is also important (British association for counselling and psychotherapy, 2016, p10). I think I will learn on this course to discuss with the clients the best ways that help them grow and work collaboratively with them instead of me taking the decisions about the best treatment like how doctors do. Also, will learn to discuss, seek support and review my work with the
Numerous people enter counseling since they are experiencing tremendous heartache and disappointment. And several are feeling conquered by life occurrences. There are married couples who frequently encounter relationships issues. Then, there are parents who undergo crisis with their children or family members, and of course millions of individuals are faced with mental health issues, along with substance abuse problems that are tearing their family apart.
This paper will discuss the following 4 Core Functions of a Counselor: Case Management, Client Education, Crisis Intervention, Referral and their primary purposes.
Counseling is a concept that has been known generally by today’s community. Most people defined counseling as a professional interaction between a trained counselor and client in which the counselor provide possible options to solve problems. Yet, it is too general. According to Mokhtar (2006), counseling is a process that helps an individual to learn about their self, environment and how to handle the tasks and relationships. Shertzer & Stone, (1974) as Mokhtar also emphasized that counseling is a process of meaningful interaction towards understanding oneself and the environment as well as producing formation, goals and values clarification for future behavior. The two definitions are chosen to emphasize the process of helping, alerting individuals about themselves and the learning process of an individual to achieve the level of prosperity in life.
The three concepts I have chosen to identify for this book report assignment are, basic empathy, motivation, and reframing. I feel that those concepts are important for counsellors to have as skils.
Smith, V. (2012). Key concepts in counselling and psychotherapy: A critical A-Z guide to theory Open University Press.
Jones, D. K. & Nugent, F. A. (2009). Introduction to profession of counseling: Fifth edition. New Jersey: Pearson Inc.
Counselling is the use of skills and training to create a relationship with ones client in order to allow for the client to form insight into their lives, accepting their feelings as their own and allowing for growth to occur. It is the aim of the helper to create a state in which the client can perform more contently and with their own self.