Counseling Skills

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Counseling Skills
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Attending

• Letting the client know you are with them and
  listening
• In some sense attending and listening means
  that you lay aside your self this can only be
  done by persons who are secure enough in
  themselves that they know they will not get lost
  in what may turn out to be the strange and
  bizarre world of the other, and that they can
  comfortably return to their own world when they
  wish.
• Carl Rogers

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Attending SkillsSOLER

• Squarely face the client
• Open posture
• Lean in on occasion
• Eye contact
• Relaxed and natural behavior

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Non-Verbal Cues

• Validates or invalidates verbal communication
• Bodily behavior
• Facial expressions
• Voice related behavior
• Observable physiological responses
• Physical appearance

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Active Listening

• Listen where your clients are in their lives
• Use to detect gaps, distortions, dissonance and
  themes
• Listen to allow empathy
• Listen with appropriate interruption
• Listening with your questions
• Listen to oneself
• Listen without diagnosing

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Empathy

• It means entering the private perceptual world
  of the other and becoming thoroughly at home in
  it. It involves being sensitive, moment by
  moment, to the changing felt meanings which flow
  in this other person, to the fear or rage or
  tenderness or confusion or whatever that he or
  she is experiencing. It means temporarily living
  in the others life, moving about in it
  delicately without making judgments. (Rogers)
• Its not what I would feel as me in your shoes,
  but what I would feel as you in your shoes

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Empathy

• Convey genuine warmth and caring
• Affirm client strengths in the midst of struggles
• Come alongside

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Empathic Response

• Give yourself time to think before responding
• Use short responses, dont over elaborate
• Dont mimic, remain yourself but allow yourself
  to feel what they might be feeling

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Empathy

• Donts
• No response
• A question
• A cliché (pat answer)
• An interpretation (diagnosis)
• Advice
• Parroting
• Sympathy (agreement)

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Probing and Encouraging

• Dont ask too many questions
• Ask questions that serve a purpose
• Ask open ended questions that help clients talk
  about specific experiences, behaviors, feelings
• Keep the focus on the client
• Ask questions that help clients move forward in
  the process
• Dont hesitate to check in with patient about how
  they are handling the process.

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Self Disclosure

• When do I use self disclosure?
• How much is too much?
• Why does the client want to know?
• How might it benefit the client?
• How do you feel about giving the information?
• Why do you feel you should or should not give the
  information?

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Dealing with Resistance

• Address when recognized
• Put responsibility on client

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The Stages of ChangeTaken from Changing for
Good by James Prochaska, John Norcross, Carlo
Diclemente

• Pre-contemplation
• Contemplation
• Preparation
• Action
• Maintenance
• Termination