The therapist and client relationship is important in effective therapy. The therapeutic relationship must be built upon before any technique and theory will be effective. Communicating real empathy and showing a genuine interest in the client will begin a solid therapeutic foundation. However, the therapist must “have the ability to stay outside the system while maintaining some emotional attachment to its members” (Patterson, Williams, Edwards, Chamow, & Grauf-Grounds, 2009, p. 107). This paper reviews and critiques an interview I recorded of a couple that pertains to clutter building up around the house. The goal of this activity was to seek out information using various questioning techniques and basic interviewing skills, and then write a paper critiquing this writer’s performance.
Basic Interviewing Skills
Basic interviewing skills include the therapist attending or joining with the client. This behavior includes orienting oneself physically and psychologically with the client. The therapist must practice these skills to build on the therapeutic relationship. Successful joining with the client begins with making the client feel understood, respected and cared for by attending to what the client is saying, acknowledging what is being said by the nodding of the head, and exhibiting appropriate body language throughout the session. Joining should begin at the moment of contact with the client. The therapist must immediately make an effort to put the client at ease by listening and maintaining good eye contact. Successful joining gives the therapeutic relationship a good foundation. However, unsuccessful joining may make the client feel unable to confide or trust in the therapist or therapeutic relationship.
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... 1997). Ranking questions require the client to rank others, based on various qualities. And lastly, rating questions provide the therapist with an estimate of how the client perceives something based on a scale of 1 to 10.
This has been an informative lesson and a wonderful class. I have learned so much about therapy and myself. I am looking forward to working with others and practicing the skills I have learned throughout this course.
Works Cited
Brown, J. E. (1997, January, 1997). The question cube: a model for developing question repertoire in training couple and family therapists [Journal]. Journal of Marital and Family Therapy, 23(1), 27-40.
Patterson, J., Williams, L., Edwards, T. M., Chamow, L., & Grauf-Grounds, C. (2009). Essential skills in family therapy from the first interview to termination (2 ed.). New York, NY: The Guilford Press.
While her therapist helps her with her father, the therapist unintentionally improves her relationship with her husband. At Southeastern Louisiana University’s common read, Smith explains, “I think I was able to meet him [her husband] because I cleared up a lot of silly stuff through therapy” (Smith). This confirmation allows the reader to receive a higher understanding of the effect therapy impacted Tracy K. Smith.
Almeida, R. V., Dolan-Del, V. K., & Parker, L. (2008). Transformative family therapy: Just families in a just society. Boston: Pearson/Allyn and Bacon.
Gladding, S. T. (2010). Family therapy: History, theory, and practice (5th Ed.). Boston, MA: Pearson
The Motivational Interviewing film was very informative. I was able to get a clear understanding of what is to be expected by the therapist during a session. The film explained the therapist should engage in reflective listening, develop a growing discrepancy, avoid arguing with clients, roll with resistance and support self-advocacy. Miller believed that this approach was far more effective than traditional methods, where the therapist pushed for change. In contrast, Miller explained that motivational interviewing focused on empowerment and helping clients to become motivationally driven to change. Also, Miller stressed the importance of working alongside clients, a term he referred to as dancing. The process in which the client leads
Nichols, M. P. (2010). Family therapy concepts and methods (9 ed.). Boston, MA: Allyn & Bacon.
Personal space, regardless of the settings (clinical/private, etc), and how it is maintained can be one form of boundaries, and may play a very significant part in the development of the therapeutic relationship. P. D’Ardenne and A. Mahtani noted that “the choice of room, the furniture and décor, the location and distancing of seats”, etc will have an influence on the therapeutic relationship and process (1992:53). Every object in the room has imperative significances and requires careful and thoughtful attention on the therapist’s part. Pictures illustrating different scenes or people from aroun...
I was really nervous about doing this first practice recording. While I knew how I wanted to start the conversation, I was stressed out about the unknown that comes along with these sessions. I am constantly listening to my friends talk, but how I had to respond for the counseling session was very different than what I am typically used to. I usually give my friends my opinions and advice on how I would handle the situation. It was hard for me to just sit back and let my classmate talk. I wanted to respond to many of her statements, but I had to take a step back and really just listen. In these types of counseling sessions my thoughts and opinions are not important. Rather, the focus should only be on the person you are counseling.
Structural family therapist have exemplified within the context relational therapies that uncovers stressors in relationship between individuals (Vetere, 2001). Structural family therapy has been known to be called “interventive approach” because of the “intensity” to encourage clients to change (Hammond & Nichols, 2014).
Research has shown that a strong therapeutic alliance is necessary for establishing a beneficial contact between the therapist and the client. If the therapist does not encourage the creation of a reliable therapeutic alliance from the beginning of the treatment, it will be hard to develop a constructive relationship with the client later. Establishing the therapeutic alliance will increase the chances of achieving the goal of the treatment because the clients will be willing to cooperate if they trust and respect the therapist. Clients are not likely to cooperate with therapists who impose their authority aggressively. Instead of imposing their authority on the patient, therapists should develop work with their patients by building a mutual relationship based on trust, understanding, and respect for the client.
The provider is strictly there to ask questions in an almost investigative fashion to aid the client in their thoughts. The questions that are asked are important because they are supposed to help the client in identifying what steps that can take to remedy their problem. “White believed the dominant problem story, brought to therapy, blinded people to the preferred and alternative stories of their lives and relationships. It is through that particular way White asked questions and listened doubly that he was able to facilitate contexts in which the rich descriptions of alternative stories were made possible”(Gallant).
Although, this session ended with amazing results, I feel as though I need more practice with this type of therapy. I have to continue to practice on allowing the patient to come up with their own solutions. I found it hard not giving advice to my client, because I already knew the situation. However, in the end I found myself very proud, because even though this was not a real therapy session, but the client was able to find a real solution to her problem. This experience is one that teaches the therapist restraint, it allows one to step back and listen. It also gives the client the opportunity to reach a solution themselves without someone giving them the answer to their
Motivational interviewing is based on a client centered approach to therapy that uses open-ended questions, affirmation, reflective listening and summaries to help the client recognize the pros and cons of change and their reasons for resisting change thereby eliminating their ambivalence about change. Once the client deals with their ambivalence the Miller and Rollick believe that the client will be able to make the necessary changes. In addition, motivational interviewing gets the client to argue for change not the counselor. Furthermore, the client not the counselor is responsible for their progress.
Furthermore, my goal is to let client fix their problems on their own through insight and guidance from the therapist. I envision a successful therapeutic process being when a client follows their goals and achieves positive outcomes in their lives. I seek to gain a therapeutic process with my clients by building rapport, trust, and helping them gain insight. When my clients are stuck and need motivation, I plan to remind them about their goals and the positive things that will come with change. If family is important to a client, informing the client about their family and their happiness may help motivate them to continue to
Gehart, D. (2014). Mastering competencies in family therapy: A practical guide to theories and clinical case documentation. Belmont, CA: Brooks/Cole.
The counseling session began with the introductions where I introduced myself as the counselor and later introduced my client. This stage is important in any counseling session since it is the time of exploration and focusing according to Gerard Egan as quoted by Wright (1998) in his essay on couselling skills. It is in this session that I was able to establish rapport and trust with my client in order to come up with a working and fruitful relationship with him. During this stage I made use of skills like questioning, where I would pose a question directly to my client, sometimes I would choose to just listen to what the client wanted to speak out while in some instances I would be forced to paraphrase the question if I felt the client did not understand the question I had asked previously. There were also other times when I would reflect through silence. During such a period, I got time to study the client and the information he had given. This being a difficult area, since some clients may not be able to volunteer information to you as the counselor, I decided to assure the client of confidentiality of any information he was willing to share with me with a few exceptions which I also told him about. Being open to him about the only times the information may not be confidential was part of my building rapport and establishing trust with him. I therefore, decided to ask the client what information he wanted to share with me and lucky enough he was ready to speak to me about different issues that he was going through.