Basic Skills in Counseling

Marijoy O. Gaduyon, PhD, RGC

Characteristics of the Helper:
build or hinder

 Self-awareness  Self-infatuated
 Good Psychological  Defensive and
health marginal
 Open-mindedness  Fixed & judgmental
 Competence  Limited knowledge
 Trustworthiness  Breaking confidence

 Interpersonal  Aloof & stuffy

attractiveness
Review of the Therapeutic Process Steps

Evaluation
& Termination
Intervention
Goal -
Setting
Problem
Assessment
Establishing
Rapport
Micro Counseling Skills Associated with
Effective Communication
1. Attending Skills

 Attending refers to how the therapist presents to the client

physically, psychologically, and emotionally. The therapist must
be present, available to the client, and, rather than turning up
with a fixed agenda, flexible and prepared to put themselves in
the client’s situation.
Remember :

 EMPATHY – the therapists accurately senses the feelings &

personal meanings that the client is experiencing &
communicates this acceptant understanding
to the client.
GENUINENESS – A genuine counselor is one without
pretenses, fiction, roles or veiled images.
•Congruent – words, actions, feelings are consistent
•Spontaneous – ability to express oneself with tactful honesty
without having to
screen your responses
 WARMTH – the ability to communicate and demonstrate
genuine caring and concern for clients.
SOLER Method

 S – squarely face your client

 O – Open body position
 L - Lean forward
 E – Eye Contact
 R - Relax
 Non –Verbal Attentiveness

 Physical Space - Slightly lean toward the speaker but maintain

arms length
 Maintain eye contact that is acceptable, not stare or glare
 Show curiosity and concern in your facial expressions.
To express agreement, nod your head.
 Body Language – relaxed posture, welcoming and open
gestures
 Touching – discreet and discerning
 Avoid distractions as much as possible. No table in between
 Non – Verbal Cues from Client

 A person’s posture often indicates his or her disposition in a

conversation.
 When people are uninterested during communication, they often
demonstrate that by crossing their arms or
 legs or pointing their body away .
EYE ACCESSING CUES OF CLIENTS
 Looking left and up: visual recall (recalling a visual memory)
 Looking left and centrally: auditory recall (recalling a noise or sound)
 Looking left and down: auditory internal dialogue
 Looking right and up: visual construction (imagining an image, not factual)
 Looking right and centrally: auditory construction (imaging a sound, not factual)
 Looking right and down: kinaesthetic (imaging a kinaesthetic sensation, not factual)
 Verbal Attentiveness

 Allow them to complete sentences

 Verbal encouragers - are a variety of verbal and non-verbal
ways of prompting clients
– Nodding
– Uh hu
– Tell me more
Use motivating phrases like “Go ahead,” and “I’m listening.”
Verbal Attentiveness

 Make a point of addressing the speaker by name.

 Vocal tone & Speech Rate – soft, soothing
2. Paraphrasing Skills

 Paraphrasing – choose important details to reflect back to client

Counselee : I am walking home after class to manage my stress due to
schoolwork
Counselor : O, walking does help you release stress..

Counselee : Last weekend I shouted at my sister and I sulk inside the

room and did not talk to anybody, and I cried myself to sleep,
Counselor : so you had an emotional weekend
What is it for?
3. Open – ended Questioning skills

 Not answerable by YES or NO

– 1. What has brought you here today?
– 2. Why do you think that?
– 3. How did you come to consider this?
– 4. Could you tell me what brings you here today?
 Open-ended questions elicit a multitude of replies and reactions
that might be valuable to a therapist.
Nature of Questions

 “How” questions tend to invite the client to talk about their

feelings.
 “What” questions lead to emergence of facts
 “When” timing of events prior and after
 “Where” environment and situations
 “ Why” provide the reasons

 – Sourced from “AIPC’s Counsellor Skills Series”

Why we avoid the “why” question
in counseling

 Whenever asking any question, especially “why” ones, an

appropriate tone of voice is vital. Beginning a question with
“why” might come to be seen as judgmental, prompting a
defensive response.
 This reaction can be avoided by speaking in a nonjudgmental
tone which is also reassuring.

4. Reflecting Skills

There are three broad types of reflection: Reflections of content,

reflections of feeling, & reflections of meaning.
– Counselors can strengthen their reflections by constructing a reflection
that integrates content, process, affect, and meaning. For example,
"While talking about the loss of your dog (content) I experience you as
alternating between anger and sadness (affect). That makes a lot of
sense to me (self-disclosure), since you told me that seeing your dog at
the end of a stressful day kept you grounded (meaning)".

5. Summarizing Skills

 In summarising, the counsellor attends to verbal and non-verbal

comments from the client over a period of time, and then pulls
together key parts of the extended communication, restating
them for the client as accurately as possible.
 Useful at the end of session or before beginning a second
session. For example, summarizing the session to the client or
reorienting the client to the previous session.

Last 5 – 10 minutes of the session

 Make a summary statement to the client and check in to see if

the client agrees with what you have observed, heard and
thought during the session.
 Example: “Mark, I could tell you were very upset today when you first came in given the
breakup you had with your boyfriend yesterday. It sounds to me like you are willing to
move on by cutting off communication with him, especially since we have identified that
one of the main reasons your relationship is toxic is because of his belittling and hurtful
comments on personally and on FB. Is there anything else you would like to add to what
I just shared?”

Purpose of Summarizing

 highlights the important and desirable points of a session. It

makes the client feel understood and encourages them to open
up and talk about their issues comprehensively and with clarity
to the therapist in the further sessions.

STAGES OF TECHNIQUES
OTHER SKILLS
Self – Disclosure Skills

 This involves sharing of oneself, any information

counselors convey about themselves to clients.
– Involves timing, goals, genuineness and
appropriateness
– Does not add burden to an already burdened client
– Should not distract client from his/her own problems.
Interpretation or reframing

 Introduces a new way of thinking about or accounting for the

client’s experience from the counselor’s frame of reference (new
point of view). Great use of theories.....

 Helpful to bolster a client’s sense of self-mastery and security.

E.g. naming the experience.....

 Example : Denial in a loss…

Example :
 Counselee: My boss is a neat freak...tells me to clean up all the time
 Counselor :You seemed to be ticked when the supervisor tells you what to do...
 Counselee :Yah, I wonder why I always end up with the same jackasses every time.
 Counselor: Have you thought about the way your relationships with bosses are the
same?
 Counselee: None of them seem to trust me to do what is right....
 Counselor “ Do you see similar feelings to bosses with the way your father always
seemed to doubt your ability to do things right?
 Counselee: you think I’m picking bosses who are just like my father?
INFORMATION GIVING and REMOVING OBSTACLES TO CHANGE

 give facts, data and resources ( Example : sharing about possible scholarships…)
 help clients identify problems and find helpful alternatives / solutions
Remember the preliminaries..

1. Introduce yourself
2. Invite clients to sit down
3. Ensure the client is comfortable
4. Address the client by name
5. Invite social conversation to reduce anxiety
6. Watch for non-verbal behaviors as signs of client’s emotional
state
7. Invite client to talk about his/her reason for coming to talk
8. Allow client time to respond
9. Indicate that you are interested in the person
The counselor must try to identify the feeling in two ways:

1. Restate the feeling using the same affect word as the

speaker
2. Restate the feeling using a different word, but with the same
feeling
References

 https://optimistminds.com/benefits-of-open-ended-questions-in-
counselling/

 https://counseling.education/counseling/skills/reflecting.html