Congruence In Counselling

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Recommended: Reflection on My Counselling Micro-Skills

Establishing rapport and building trust is extremely important and essential in the counselling relationship. Through the use of micro-skills such as empathy, unconditional positive regard and congruence, the counsellor is able to set the foundation for building a strong relationship between themselves and the client. Geldard, Geldard & Yin Foo (2017) suggest that successful outcomes in counselling are greatly influenced by the type of relationship that is established. This essay focuses on exploring and breaking down, in particular, these three micro-skills. Further discussion is also provided of their importance in the counselling relationship, as well as examples from the Counselling and Therapy in Video resource. Empathy is an essential …show more content…

Congruence is also essential in establishing good rapport and building a strong counselling relationship. Geldard, Geldard & Yin Foo (2017), define congruency as being your true self, being genuine and being a complete and whole person without the need to mask and pretend to be someone different. Congruency can also be defined as “agreement or harmony; compatibility” (English Oxford Living Dictionaries, 2017). By looking at these definitions, we can clearly see that as a counsellor it is important to be congruent in order to achieve a trusting environment. Let’s explore further how the counsellor is congruent in the video in order to continue building good rapport and a strong relationship with the …show more content…

Mearns (2002), acknowledges that to develop congruency and acceptance in the counselling relationship can be extremely difficult and challenging. Both the quality and quantity of empathy and unconditional positive regard can be strengthened by the counsellor being congruent, and can also help in making these two micro-skills flow more naturally, rather then being forced (Mearns, 2002). From this we can clearly see that empathy, unconditional positive regard and congruence, work together in establishing good rapport, a trusting environment and building a strong counselling

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