CYCC 1110: Counselling Phases and Client Rights

• CYCC 1110-001, Winter Semester 2025; Chad Dalley is the instructor ([email protected]); course overview from 01/20/25 to 02/10/25

Phases of Counselling

• Preliminary: preplanning, files/info review, prepare the setting
• Beginning: establish relationship, interview for understanding, evaluating, active listening
• Action: goal setting, action planning, challenging, evaluating
• Ending: referring, evaluating, giving info, support

Voluntary vs. Involuntary Service

• In the CYCC field, people seek service in many ways
• Voluntary: self-referral, open treatment, in-home, groups
• Involuntary: apprehension, caregiver decision, criminal justice system, educational system (depending on age), high risk

Client Self-Determination

• Self-determination is a principle that promotes the client's rights to autonomy and freedom of choice
• Clients have the right to have input in the decisions over their treatment
• Supporting client self-determination: freedom to choose, knowledge and information, involvement in decision making, access to resources, control and informed consent
• Applying self-determination involves advocacy and avoiding prescriptive advice/controlling responses
• Other ways to apply: use silence, explore options, encourage decisions, evaluate consequences, fully inform
• Promote collaborative decision making or access to resources when possible
• Provide information on client rights, recognizing the clients as the expert, avoid dependency promoting behaviors, encourage optimism and foster relationships of safety, honor lifestyle choices and empower a client's self-advocacy

Competent Counselling

• A competent counselor works within their limits and pursues professional training/development
• Being self-aware of personal reactions to unresolved issues is important
• Avoid the need to be liked, status/privilege, control, perfectionism or social relationships

Bias Effects

• Impacts of bias: prejudice, affinity bias, gender bias, countertransference, contrast bias, confirmation bias, mind reading, conformity bias, halo effect, frame of reference, spillover effect, triggered bias, avoidance defence bias

Ethics

• Guidelines that define limits of permissible behavior, assist decision making and protect clients; includes guidelines for coworkers/workplaces and outlines values
• CYCAA Code of Ethics: responsibility to society, the client, employer/employing organization, profession
• Ethical practice necessitates resisting dual relationships and maintaining professional boundaries
• Understand confidentiality and its limits; for example, disclose risk of harm or abuse and court orders require breaking confidentiality

Resolving Ethical Dilemmas

• Steps for resolution: gather facts, identify ethical issues/violations, identify/evaluate options, evaluate gains/losses, consider cultural context, consult and take action

Counselling Defined

• Meaningful and purposeful conversations that support the growth of the client
• Different looks depending on the program or space
• Forms it can take: "traditional talk therapy", parallel play, driving, going for a walk, post crisis debrief, over a meal, long or short conversations
• Targets: coping with feelings/support, problem solving, relationship problem solving, assist with decision making, promoting insight, crisis intervention, access resources and improve communication
• Need for diversity and choice; no one size fits all counselling

Diversity and Choice

• Expert counsellors draw on evidence based best practices; adaptation of skills for individual clients is required
• Adaptive counselors know how and when to use certain skills
• Clients are at different stages of motivation that suggests unique skills
• Effective counselors adapt their language to meet their clients' needs

Pitfalls and Barriers

• Client issues can hinder involvement due to discomfort with secondary gains
• Counseling requires vulnerability, a major barrier
• Counsellor Issues: burnout, secondary trauma, personal problems, loss of objectivity
• Common mistakes encompass pseudo-counselling, advice giving, rescuing/band-aiding, communication stoppers and counsellor error

Illusion of Work

• Defined as inadequate implementation of skills, it results in conversations without real meaning
• Can come from avoiding feelings that involve "pain"

Counsellor Errors

• Clumsy skillset leads mistakes and missed opportunities; it is okay to make mistakes, but they need acknowledgement for correction and growth through practice
• Advice-Giving Trap: clients often seek advice because counsellors are viewed as experts
• Giving advice can be harmful especially if rooted in differing values

Rescuing/Band-Aiding

• Occurs when a counselor's actions prevent clients from dealing with issues/feelings

Uncontrollable Variables

• Large caseloads, lack of sufficient time/resources, crises in programs, family dynamics

Defense Mechanisms

• Mental processes that shield from undesirable thoughts
• Examples: denial, rationalizations, passive aggression, humor, dissociation

Silence

• Silence is a skill that new counselors often do not use
• Although it may be uncomfortable, it's powerful and can be used in many ways
• Achieves: processing time, counselor thinking time, space for the client to say more, read non-verbal communication, and planned ignoring

Trauma-Informed Practice

• Involves understanding of trauma, which takes many forms like survivors of war/refugees, disaster survivors and systematic/abuse survivors
• Other examples: sexual assault, violent crimes, accidents, intergenerational trauma
• DSM-5 Trauma Definition: confrontation with actual or threatened death, injury, or sexual violence
• Stressful events not directly involving life or physical injury are not trauma by this definition
• Trauma: a deeply distressing personal experience with emotional/physical impact
• Trauma Awareness: the act of increasing the knowledge of both the client and the counselor regarding trauma and its effect
• Emphasis on Safety: immediate focus after traumatic event
• Opportunity: encourage choice, collaboration and connection
• Utilize: voice and choice; connection to their healing; meeting the client where they're at
• Build: strengths and skills

The Four Rs of Trauma-Informed Care

• Realize the impact of trauma and recovery paths
• Recognize signs/symptoms of trauma in the system
• Respond appropriately by integrating knowledge about trauma into policies/procedures/practices
• Resist re-traumatization of children/adults

Self-Care Types

• Physical: sleep, stretching, walking, exercise, healthy food, yoga, rest
• Emotional: stress management, emotional maturity, forgiveness, compassion, kindness
• Social: boundaries, support system, positive social media, communication, friend time, asking for help
• Spiritual: time alone, meditation, connection, nature, journaling, and sacred space
• Personal: hobbies, creativity, finding your identity, goals, and honoring your true self
• Space: safety, healthy living environment, security, stability, and organization
• Financial: saving, budgeting, money management, paying bills and splurging
• Work: time management, boundaries, positive workplace, more learning, breaks

Skill Clusters

• Relationship building, exploration, promoting change and empowering
• Relationship Building Core Conditions: congruence/genuineness, empathy, positive regard
• Nothing will change without a relationship
• Active listening includes attending and silence
• Paraphrasing, summarizing, questioning with empathy (core condition)
• Exploring/Probing: directives, simple encouragers, counsellor self-disclosure, humor
• Empowering involves teaching, giving/supporting information and identifying strengths
• Promoting Change: clients seek to change, but it can be challenging
• Confrontation: helps clients examine actions and consider viewpoints

Contracting in Counselling

• Relationship, session, and anticipatory contracting with immediacy
• Preliminary Stage: create conditions for relationship and research
• Beginning: develop rapport, trust, working contact, and safety
• Action: relationship strengthens, and the client takes risks
• Ending: termination when counselling serves its purpose

Counselling Contracts

• Ensure client/counsellor alignment on goals and methods
• Relationship contracts: outline counsellor/client collaboration resulting in therapeutic relationship; contracts can vary by program, like defining roles or setting boundaries
• Asking: how do you want to work with me, how can I support you, and how will we work
• Ground rules should be documented
• Anticipatory Contract: enables planning for predictable events
• Questions include: barriers, interferences, triggers, past successes, past failures, and alternative actions
• Work Contract: defines current session focus and goals, covering problems, goals/objectives and activities

Session Components

• Tasks to perform, expected duration, meeting schedule, supports of other participants
• Asking: number one concern, desired frequency, miracle question, and who can help
• Discussion includes setbacks, schedule, end dates, and strengths
• Work contracts can be done at any session from beginner stage
• Contracts are unique and working documents

Counselling Concepts

• Immediacy: evaluates counselling relationships and adjusts; prevents breakdowns
• Transference: communicating to the counsellor like a significant person from the past; clients can have intense, non-contextual reactions
• Countertransference: counsellor transfers feelings to a client based on their own unresolved issues
• Terminating: ending relationships due to goal achievement Reasons: counsellor incompetence, objectivity compromise, unsuccessful counselling, client unwillingness, boundary violation, program decisions, and client discharge; and it is vital to be thoughtful an plan

Questioning and Empathy

• Listening Components: control distractions, be open, suspend judgment, ask questions, confirm understanding, pay attention to nonverbal and understand content, and remember
• Questioning achieves relational building, gathering info, providing focus, promoting insight and catharsis

Question Types

• Open: expansive answers; using who, what, where, when, why or how
• Closed: yes/no answers; can, will, do, have, did, are
• Indirect: statements that imply questions; "I'm curious about..."
• Establish purpose and define the counseling relationship
• Clients may/may not know what they want but know the pain
• Questions: exploring and understanding; develop a safe space; empower to explore; shows interest
• Use questions to explore: affect, cognitive domains, behavioral domains and problem solving

Effective Questions

• Assist clients in thinking systematically about remedies to their problems
• Evaluative: monitors counselling outcomes and tracks process
• Questions and Logs: scaling, daily logs, progress reports
• Clarifying misinformation that creates insight (intent, meaning, content, results) and prompts deeper exploration
• Pitfalls: leading, excessive/multiple/irrelevant/poorly timed/why questions
• Poor Reponses: misunderstanding, unclear, the answer unknown, privacy issues, unresolved relationship tissues
• Six Key Questions: what brings you here today, what are your expectations of me, what information do you need to know, what do you mean by, what did we accomplish and what did we miss
• Key Considerations: recognize customer's emotions/feelings, be non-judgmental and articulate them back with understanding
• Empathy: seeing the world through someone else's eyes; it's accurately understanding another's emotional perspective and communicating this feeling
• An Core Condition that is very influential

Empathy Types

• Basic: fundamental ability to understand and share a client's emotions and perspective
• Invitational: encourages clients to explore emotions and experiences
• Inferred: the ability of a counsellor to understand a client's emotions and experiences by picking up on non-verbal cues, body language, and subtle indicators

Overview of counselling phases: preliminary, beginning, action, and ending. Discussion of voluntary versus involuntary service in the CYCC field. Emphasis on client self-determination, promoting autonomy and freedom of choice in treatment decisions.