PT 22003

BASIC COUNSELLING SKILLS

TITLE:
Reflection of Meaning

AZAHAR CHE LATIFF

Lecturer
Faculty of Psychology & Education, UMS
 Major Function
• Reflection of meaning concerned with
finding the deeply held thoughts and
feelings underlying life experience.
• Help clients to search into deeper aspects
of their life experience.
• Meaning is also closely related to spiritual
issue and the role of God in clients lives.
 Secondary Function
• Facilitating clients’interpretation of their
own experiences (experience means).
• Understanding client deeper meanings.
• Assisting clients to explore their values
and goals in life.
• Relating this skill to person-centered
counseling.
• Facilitating client discernment
(pengertian/makna) of life mission.
 Introduction
• (1) Meaning issues often become prominent after a
person has experienced a serious illness (AIDS,
cancer), encountered a (2) life-changing experience
(death, divorce) or gone through (3) serious trauma
(war, rape, abuse).
• They become part of life experience that cannot be
changed.
• Clients need a (4) deeper experience as they
reflect on the meaning of their lives, which often
have been totally changed by the traumatic
experience.
• RoM = Meaning issues + life-changing experience + Trauma
• + deeper experience + RoG + K + B + T)
• If interviewer/counselor help clients find
a way through exploration of meaning, they
will often find their own way to achieve their
objectives.
• We need to be aware 2 levels of communication:
Explicit level– observable level : Attending,
Questioning, Paraphrasing, Summarizing – focus
on what a client says and does.
Implicit level – skill of discovering and
reflecting meaning (Integated AB, Q, Pf, Smz ect.)
• Meaning run as deep as, or deeper than,
feelings; meaning provide basic organizing
constructs for our lives.
 IDEFINING THE SKILLS OF REFLECTING
MEANING
Figure Illustrates The Centrality Of Meaning.

+ life-changing experience + Trauma + deeper experience + RoG

1. All four dimensions (B+T+F+M=RoM) are
operating simultaneously & constantly in
any individual/group. We are systems &
any change in one part of the system
affects the total.
2. As a general rule,
§ paraphrases speak to thoughts.
§ reflection of feelings to feelings.
§ attending bahevior and observation to
behaviors.
§ reflection of meaning to meaning.
3. In using these skills, we attempt to break down
the complex behavior of the client into
component parts. A change in any one part of the
system may result in a change in other parts as
well.
4. For many clients meaning is central issue, and it
is here that the most profound change may
occur.
5. For other client however, change in thoughts
may be most helpful. Still others may change
behavior or work on feeling.
6. Meaning oriented therapies include
psychoanalysis, logotherapy and person-centered
therapy.
• Integrative approaches (F+B+T=M)
such as developmental counseling
and therapy and multimodal therapy
consider meaning as a central
aspect.
 Reviewing the concept in
•terms of the experience of
(i) Behaviorally.
divorce
– Do, doing and acting.
– Consulting with a lawyer, finding new
house.
• (ii) Feelings.
– Emotions occuring in the individual while
he or she is acting or thinking.
– Finding new house – sad, glad.
– Consulting with a lawyer – angry, sad.
• (iii) Thoughts
– Mental messages that occur
simultaneously with behavior and
feeling.
– Example, the client searching for a
house may have many different
thoughts constantly running through
his or her mind; How can I afford
decent housing?” or I’m guilty; I
shouldn’t have that affair”.
• (iv) Meaning (B+F+T)
– Closely allied to feelings and thoughts and may be
considered an important driving force to behavior.
– Can often override and control emotions as values
can become central to one’s life goals.
– The meaning level represents a clustering or
grouping of thoughts and feelings into a more
coherent whole.
– The underlying major constructs that we use to
organize our experience; our thoughts, feelings
and behavior.
– Key words associated with meaning are values,
beliefs, unconscious motivators and making sense
of things.
 DEFINING SKILL OF
• ClientsELICITING AND discussion
do not usually volunteer
of meaning issues.
• REFLECTION
The first step in reflectingOF
meaning often
MEANING
is to help clients think in meaning terms
through the use of a variety of questions.
 DEFINING SKILL OF
StrategiesELICITING
to Elicit MeaningAND
1. The behaviors, thoughts and feelings need
to haveREFLECTION
been made explicit OF
and clear
MEANING
through attending behavior, observation,
and the basic listening sequence. A general
understanding of the client is essential as a
first step.
2. Consider storytelling as a useful way to discover
the background of a client’s meaning-making.
- Critical life events such as illness, lost of
parent or loved one, accident or divorce often
force people to encounter deeper meaning
issues.
-If a major life event is critical, illustrative
stories can form the basis for exploration of
meaning.
-If spiritual issues come to the fore, draw out one
or two concrete example stories of the client’s
religious heritage (Stress & Muhammad
prophet)
3. Question in which content is oriented
toward meaning may be asked.
Example : “What does this mean to you”
“What values underlie your
actions?”
4. The key meaning and value words of the
client are reflected. It is very important to
use the exact, key words of the client for
the major ideas. The interviewer / counselor
task is reflecting meaning, values, and the
way a client makes sense of the world.
• Meanings are reflected through the
following process;
– Begin with a sentence stem.
Eg: “You mean...,”Could it mean to you...,
“Sounds like your value....”
– Use the client’s own words that describe
the most important aspect of the
meaning. This helps ensure that
interviewer/counselor stay within the
client’s frame of reference rather than
using own intrepretation.
– Add a paraphrase of the client’s
longer statements that can captures
the essence of what has been said but,
again, operates primarily from the
client’s frame of reference.
– Closing with a check-out (OQ/FB).
eg: “Is that closer?”, “Am I hearing
you correctly?”
• Meanings may be more complex in situations
in which two values or of meanings collide
(berlanggar).
• The use of questions, reflection of feelings,
and so on may be required to hep clients
sort through meaning and value conflicts.
• Discovering and reflecting meaning may at
times be a difficult skill; yet used sparingly
and effectively, it can help clients find
themselves and their direction more clearly.
• Reflection of meaning, questioning,
Reflection of feeling and
paraphrase distinctly different on
tone or purpose.
• Reflection of meaning particularly
important in cognitive-behavior
theory, existential approaches to
counseling and logotherapy.
 REFLECTION OF
MEANING AND
• LOGOTHERAPY
Search for positive meaning that
underlies behavior, thought and
action.
• Deflection (pesongan) is a specific
strategy uses to uncover deeper
meanings and help clients become
more positive in outlook (lihat
pengalaman buruk sebagai motivasi)
Client: I really feel at a loss. Nothing in my
life makes sense right now.
Counselor: I understand that-we’ve talked
about the issues with your partner and
how sad you are. Let’s shif just a bit.
Could you tell me about what has been
meaningful and important to you in the
past?
(The client shares some key supportive
religious experiences from the past. The
counselor draws out the stories and
listens carefully)
Counselor: (reflecting meaning) So, you
found considerable meanings and value
in worship and time spent quietly. You
also found worth in service in the
church. You drifted away because of
your partner’s lack of interest. And
now you feel you betrayed some of
your basic values. Where does this
lead you in terms of a meaningful way
to handle some of your present
concerns?
REFLECTION OF MEANING
AND PERSON-CENTERED
COUNSELING
Client: I have all the symptoms of the fear,
even though it’s something I want.
Therapist: The fear somehow hits you at the
core. Is that you mean?
Client: Somehow fear is inside me anytime I
get near my goal.
Therapist: Nearing goals reaches an issue
somehow deeper for you.
 REFLECTION OF MEANING
AND COGNITIVE-
• BEHAVIORAL APPROACHES
Interested in overt behavior but
also want to explore the underlying
process or “inner speech” that
monitor and guide more observable
behavior.
• Seek to move clients move rapidly
into new patterns of cognition and
meaning.
Counselor: So the reason you gamble
is to avoid your own deeper feelings
of self-doubt and worthlessness?
Your inner speech and repeating
statements to yourself seem to be
“I’m good; I’m worthless.” Right?
Client: yeah, those ideas keep running
through my mind. The excitement
of the racetrack helps me
forget.....for a while...
 CONCLUSION
• Function
– Major
– Secondary
• Introduction
– Meaning organizes life experience and often
serves as a metaphor from which clients
generate words, sentences, and behaviors.
– Clients faced with complex life decisions
may make them on the basis of meaning,
values, and reasons rather than on objective
facts or on feelings. However, s are othese
meanings and valuten unclear to the client.
• Reflection of meaning and
logotherapy
• Reflection of meaning and Person-
centered Counseling
• Reflection of meaning and
Cognitive-behavioral approaches
• Thank You