Stages of the Counseling
Process
Stage 1: Relationship Building
Tasks here include:
•Laying foundations for trust
•Establishing the structure and form the
relationship will take
•Informed consent process
•Articulating roles of counselor and
client - developing a collaborative
working
alliance.
Stage 2: Identifying the nature of the
presenting problem
* To understand the kind of change that
is sought.
* Seeing the problem in context to the
client's larger world.
* Keeping an eye on the strengths and
resources of the client.
* Counselor builds hypotheses during
this stage and throughout maintain
process.
Stage 3: Formulation of Counseling
Goals
* The client articulates where they want
their counseling journey to take them.
Client role as one of driving the bus.
* Enhances sense of ownership and
motivation factors important in the
change process.
* Well identified goals help create a
roadmap and means to evaluate.
* Goals may change, evolve as therapy
progresses
Stage 4; Categories: Counseling
Goals
* To change an unwanted or unwelcome
behavior.
* To better cope.
* To make and implement decisions.
* To enhance relationships.
* To help client's journey of growth
toward achieving potential (Nystul,
2003)
Stage 5: Intervention and Problem
Solving
*Begins as soon as goals are
established
* There is plan for how to achieve them.
* Action is directed in accordance with
new perspective nd change.
* Collaboratively established plan works
best.
* Educational information is given to that
client is offered regarding options, and
advantages/disadvantages for each.
Intervention
° New perspectives on both the way
clients have looked at the problem and
ways they might approach it
•Confrontation Vs Carefrontation
•Self Disclosure as appropriate
• A clear, simple plan toward goals and
intervention
** Counseling skills are all the time at
hand and in use in lI these processes.
Characteristics of a good intervention
plan:
1. Goals are clearly defined and
reachable
2. Plan able to be adapted with time
3. Positive and action-oriented focus
4. Essential to an effective plan is
client's motivation and willingness to
follow it.
(We follow) Prochaska's stages of
Change (Intervention Phase)
(James O. Prochaska's Model of
Change)
•Pre Contemplation - is the stage at
which there is no intention to change
behavior in the foreseeable future. Many
individuals in this stage are unaware or
under-aware of their problems." Some
people call this phase "denial."
•Contemplation - is the stage in which
people are aware that a problem exists
and are seriously thinking about
overcoming it but have not yet made a
commitment to take action." Many
people in this stage can be described as
ambivalent. They want to improve their
blood sugar, but are not yet ready to cut
back on eating sweets.
•Preparation/Determination Action
- can be considered the information
gathering and planning stage. The
preparation stage is the most important.
Fifty percent of the people who attempt
behavior change and skip this stage will
relapse before on within 21 days
approximately.
•Action and Maintenance Action
 - is the stage in which individuals
modify their behavior, experiences, or
environment in order to overcome their
problems. Action involves the most
overt behavioral changes and requires
considerable commitment of time and
energy." During the action stage, one
implements the plans developed and
information gathered in the preparation
stage.
Maintenance is the stage in which
people work to prevent relapse and
consolidate the gains attained during
action. For addictive behaviors this
stage extends from six months to an
indeterminate period past the initial
action."
- There's a necessity for Consciousness
raising
 - the is the process of actively
becoming more aware, mindful or
conscious of the current situation.
• Crafting a Treatment Plan - Begins
with clearly articulated problem and
priority from client's perspective of
primary (presenting) vs underlying
clearly defined, broad goals - global
objective
•Objectives - behaviorally stated, steps
on way to broader goal - mindful of
accountability.
• Interventions to be utilized by
counselor
Stage 6: Termination and follow up
Collaboration with client in identifying a
date in advance for next follow up
session and the role to review progress,
create closure in client counselor
relationship and plan for future.
Think of this as a means of empowering
client. Counselor always is mindful of
avoiding fostering dependency for the
client only till client is aware of own
needs.
*Preparation for termination begins long
before
Open door / plan for possibility of future
need are required to be given by the
counselor to the client. Termination
considered not just at end of successful
relationship, but also is considered
when it seems that counseling is not
being helpful.
Stage 7: Research and Evaluation
•Throughout the counseling process,
towards the end, there is a feedback
and the counseling process is reviewed
through:
•Generating hypotheses
•Trying intervention strategies
•Determining if/when goal is met and a
plan for evaluation is made.
Therapeutic counseling and counseling
skills
Therapeutic counseling is an activity
undertaken by people who are
specifically trained in this field. It differs
from many other occupations and areas
of work that are often described as
‘counselling’ but, strictly speaking, are
not.
These other areas include, for example,
career counseling, financial counseling,
sports counseling and style counseling.
In fact, there is a growing tendency to
describe any occupation in which advice
is given as ‘counseling’. Therapeutic
counseling does not include advice
giving in its repertoire of skills, although
it should be added that clients cannot
fail to be influenced by a counselor’s
attitudes, even when these are not
explicitly stated.
In therapeutic counseling, the
relationship between helper and client is
especially significant and based on the
principle of equality. Vulnerable clients
may not always feel equal, but it is a
principle that all counsellors need to
respect and uphold.
The following is a definition offered by
the British Association for Counselling
and Psychotherapy:
Counselling and Psychotherapy are
umbrella terms that cover a range of
talking therapies. They are delivered by
trained practitioners who work with
people over a short or long term to help
them bring about effective change or
enhance their wellbeing.
British Association for Counselling and
Psychotherapy (2013).
Counseling skills and counseling theory
It is important to make a distinction
between theory and skills in the context
of counsellor training.
At a basic level, the word ‘skills’ refers
to the interpersonal tools counselors
need to possess or acquire, in order to
communicate effectively with clients.
These essential tools or skills include
those of:
* Listening and attending * Paraphrasing
* Summarizing
* Asking questions
* encouraging clients to be specific
* reflecting their feelings
* helping them to clarify their thoughts
* encouraging them to focus on key
issues * offering forms of challenge
when needed.
Implicit in the skills listed here are
certain counsellor attitudes as well.
These include:
* acceptance of, and respect for, clients
* recognition of each client’s personal
values, cultural background and
resources.
Counseling theory, on the other hand,
deals with assumptions and
hypotheses about the process of human
development. The problems and
difficulties that can arise at various
stages throughout our lifespan, as a
result of environmental or other
influences, are also considered under
the heading of counseling theory.
The ways in which different forms of
therapy and counseling approach these
problems, as well as their individual
methods of helping clients, have
evolved alongside theories about
human development and the acquisition
of helpful and unhelpful behaviors.
Problems of advice giving
In discussing the limits of advice giving,
Rollo May makes the point that it is not
‘an adequate counselling function
because it violates the autonomy of the
personality’ (May, 1993: 117).
Even before Rollo May expressed his
reservations in this way, Freud (1920)
had cautioned against giving direct
advice, for it was his view that people
should be helped to identify their own
conclusions without pressure from a
therapist.
However, many clients seek counseling
in the hope that they will be told what to
do. Others hope for advice about the
best ways to tackle their personal
problems.
Nevertheless, advice is not given in
therapeutic counseling, and there are
many reasons (including those
highlighted by Freud and Mayo) for
withholding it.
Perhaps one of the most important
reasons is one which
Amada (1995) identifies. He refers to
the experiences of young children who
are given frequent and copious advice,
and who harbor deep feelings of
resentment on account of it. These
feelings do not disappear, but are
carried into adult life and operate at an
unconscious level thereafter.
Advice, therefore, is not always valued
in the way that advisers would like to
believe. Nevertheless, there are some
people who may be quite willing to
follow any advice in a slavish and
uncritical way. 
These people tend to view all helpers as
experts, but in the context of therapeutic
counseling they can be helped to look
more closely at this aspect of their
thinking and identify the reasons such
expectations exist.
Clients who habitually invite or expect
the control of others, or those who
acquiesce to the views of other people,
are in danger of losing sight of their own
capabilities and resources. Counselors
can help their clients to locate and
identify these resources, but in order to
do this they need to be honest in
relation to the subject of advice and its
distorting influence.
Clients are helped much more when
they gain some understanding of the
insecurities that impel them to seek
advice in the first place. When clients
develop greater understanding of their
emotional problems, they tend to
become more self-directed as a
consequence, and the opinions and
views of others are considered in a
more detached way.
This represents a real shift towards
personal development and
empowerment.
Counseling or Psychotherapy?
It is believed there is a great distinction
between the two. Others see it as
useless to make distinction. But it is
more important to know that there is a
distinction between the two, most often
it is used interchangeably.
Counseling has traditionally been
viewed as less intensive than
psychotherapy. It has focused more on
preventive mental health, while
psychotherapy has concerned itself with
reparative intervention.
Counseling as a profession grew out of
the guidance movement, in opposition
to traditional psychotherapy. Yet today,
professional counseling encompassed
within its practice clinicians who focus
on both growth and lifestyle issues as
well as the remediation of mental
disorders.
The goals of counseling have been
oriented toward education and
developmental concerns, while the
goals of psychotherapy have generally
been remedial.
Work settings also have been used to
distinguish between counseling and
psychotherapy. Psychotherapists,
according to traditional expectations,
are more apt to work in hospital settings
or in private practice, while counselors
are more likely to work in educational
settings.
The number of interventions to be
deciding factor also.
Counseling hold from 3 to 12 or 15
sessions while psychotherapy and its
interventions go beyond that point.
Counseling is characterized by the
terms such as “educational”,
“vocational”, “supportive”, “problem-
solving”, “conscious”, and “oriented in
the present”.
Psychotherapy, on the other hand, can
be characterized by such terms as
“reconstructive”, “in-depth”, “oriented in
the past”, “analytical”, “emphasis on
dysfunction”, and “long-term”.
But in the middle range of the
continuum, where the interventions are
less defined, the terms counseling and
psychotherapy are often options for
describing the same thing.
Counseling – is the application of
mental health, psychological or human
development principles, through
cognitive, affective, behavioral or
systematic interventions and
techniques, and strategies that address
wellness, personal growth or career
development, as well as pathology.
The definition contains a number of
implicit and explicit points that are
important for counselors to realize:
1. Counseling is a profession
-practitioners complete a prescribed
course of study
2. Counseling deals with wellness,
personal growth, career and
pathological concerns.
- counselors work in areas that involve
relationships; both intra and
interpersonal concerns
related to finding meaning and
adjustment in such settings as schools,
families and careers.
3. Counseling is theory based.
-counselors draw from a number of
theoretical approaches, including those
that are
cognitive, affective and systemic.
- these theories may be applied to
individuals, groups or families
4. Counseling is a process that may be
developmental or intervening.
- counselors focus on their client’s goals
and it involves the process of both
choice and
change.
Psychotherapy – (or therapy)
traditionally focuses on serious
problems associated with intra- psychic,
internal and personal issues and
conflicts.
- It deals with the “recovery of
adequacy”
There are 2 Criteria that distinguish
psychotherapy with counseling:
1. Psychotherapy usually involves a
“long-term relationship”.
- 20 t0 40 sessions over a period of 6
months or 2 years that focuses on
reconstructive change.
2. Psychotherapy is provided in both
outpatient or inpatient settings
(residential treatment facilities such as
mental hospitals), unlike counseling it is
provided in “outpatient settings” (non-
residential buildings such as schools or
community agencies)
Skills include:
Effective Counseling Skills
Core listening skills are basic
counselling skills, or practiced
techniques, that help the
1 decisions about what issues the client
  Through active listening, rapport is
built, trust forms and the speaker feels
heard and
 understood by the counsellor or
listener.
•••
The core counselling skills are
described below.
2. Silence
Silence in counselling gives the client
control of the content, pace and
objectives.
  Key Counselling Skills Explained
Core Counselling Skills
   counsellor to empathetically listen to
the speaker.
  active listening
 being aware of nonverbal
communication
 building rapport
  1. Attending
 Attending in counselling means being in
the company of someone else and
giving that person
your full attention, to what they are
saying or doing, valuing them as worthy
individuals.
    This includes the counsellor listening
to silences as well as words, sitting with
them and
 recognizing that the silences may
facilitate the counselling process.
 3. Reflecting and Paraphrasing
 Reflecting in counselling is part of the
‘art of listening’. It is making sure that
the client knows
 their story is being listened to.
This is achieved by the
helper/counsellor by both repeating and
feeding a shorter version
  of their story back to the client. This
known as 'paraphrasing'.
 4. Clarifying and the Use of Questions
 Questions in counselling are classed as
a basic skill. The counsellor uses open
questions to
 clarify his or her understanding of what
the client is feeling.
 Leading questions are to be avoided as
they can impair the counselling
relationship.
 5. Focusing
Focusing in counseling involves making
wants to deal with. The client may have
mentioned a range of issues and
problems and focusing allows the
counsellor and client together to clear
away some of the less important
surrounding material
  and concentrate on the central issues
of concern.
 6. Building Rapport
 Building rapport with clients in
counselling is important, whatever
model of counselling the
counsellor is working with. Rapport
means a sense of having a connection
with the person.
 7. Summarising
Counselors use counselling skills to
help them better understand and listen
to clients.
  Summaries in counseling are longer
paraphrases. They condense or
crystallize the essence of what the client
is saying and feeling. The summary
'sums up' the main themes that are
emerging.
8. Immediacy
  Using immediacy means that the
therapist reveals how they themselves
are feeling in response to the client.
According to Feltham and Dryden
(1993: 88), immediacy is ‘the key skill of
focusing attention on the here and now
relationship of counsellor and client with
 helpful timing, in order to challenge
defensiveness and/or heighten
awareness’.
 a. Be genuine.
 If you don't understand, it's OK to check
and ask for further information.
 b. Try to be brief when reflecting back.
 The speaker should do most of the
talking.
 c. Use your own words to reflect back.
 However, the art of listening can be
practised by almost anybody.