Effective Helping Components

Effective Helping Components

• The three components of being an effective helper: using helping skills, being self-aware, and having a facilitative attitude.

Seeking Help Factors

• People seek help when aware of pain or facing a difficult situation they perceive as problematic.
• The need to seek help arises when the perceived pain outweighs the barriers to seeking it.

Distinguishing Helping from Conversation

• Helping involves collaborative assistance to explore feelings, gain insight, and make changes.
• It uses verbal skills related to listening and encouraging exploration of personal/emotional concerns.
• A helper is someone providing assistance, and a client is someone receiving support.

Stages of Change

• The five stages of change: precontemplation, contemplation, preparation, action, and maintenance.

Clara Hill's Theoretical Stages

• Exploration Stage: Facilitates clients in discussing their thoughts and feelings.
• Insight Stage: Fosters awareness and insight into the reasons for thoughts, feelings, and behaviors.
• Action Stage: Focuses on changes, including which changes to pursue, sometimes teaching the client the skills needed to create change.

Types of Self-Awareness

• Facilitative self-awareness
• Hindering self-awareness.

Strategies to Increase Self-Awareness

• Examine personal biases and motivations.
• Engage in self-reflection to model its importance for clients.
• Pause, breathe, and reflect before responding in sessions.
• Use positive self-talk and admit when you lose track, asking for clarification.
• Perform a body scan to identify and understand feelings.
• Note extreme reactions to clients for later examination in supervision.
• Seek supervision with a licensed professional.
• Engage in a healthy lifestyle.
• Review recordings of client sessions.

Hays' ADDRESSING Acronym

• A: Age and Generation
• DD: Developmental Disability
• D: Disability
• R: Religion
• E: Ethnicity & Race
• S: Socioeconomic Status
• S: Indigenous Group
• I: National Origin & Language
• G: Gender
• The Addressing framework helps address cultural influences shaping a person's experiences.

Carl Rogers' Theory on Personality

• All needs cannot be met because the world is not perfect.
• Parental socialization is crucial.
• Children may distrust inner experiences, choosing parental attention.
• Suppressed feelings lead to emptiness.
• Split between real and ideal self is a source of anxiety, depression, & defensiveness.
• Rogers' theory informs all stages of helping.
• Facilitative conditions are crucial for therapy.
• Clients are self-healing and active agents of change.
• Skills and attitude are inseparable
• Helpers need to facilitate insight & action when clients are ready.

Methods to Decrease Anxiety

• Denial
• Avoidance
• Distortion
• Seeking Validation

Defining Attending

• Attending means helpers orient themselves physically toward clients.
• The goal is to communicate attention, so they feel safe.
• It is communicated through nonverbal & paraverbal behaviors.
• People make eye contact in 28-70% of interactions for no more than 1 second.
• Gaze avoidance signals anxiety, discomfort, or a desire not to communicate.

Defining Kinesics

• Kinesics is the relationship of bodily movements to communication.
• Body movements are important in helping responders recognize emotions.

Adaptors, Illustrators, and Regulators

• Adaptors are habitual acts outside awareness (e.g., head scratching).
• Illustrators accompany speech (e.g., measuring with hands).
• Regulators monitor conversation flow (e.g., head nods).

Purpose of Minimal Encouragers

• Minimal encouragers are words/non-words that encourage clients to keep talking (e.g., “um-hmm,” “yeah,” “wow”).

Purpose of Approval-Reassurances

• Approval-reassurance provides emotional support, indicating empathy.
• Can be used to provide reinforcement by encouraging the client to continue exploring. (e.g., “That’s really hard to handle,” “That’s a devastating situation,”)

Effective Use of Silence

• Silence can convey empathy, warmth, & respect.
• It allows clients time & space to reflect.
• It can be the most helpful thing a helper can do.

Touching Clients

• Touching can provide support, yet also produce negative effects.
• It is best for beginning helpers to refrain from touching.

Intention Behind Using a Restatement

• Helpers need to be mirrors/sounding boards so clients can hear what they are saying without judgment.
• Restatements enable clients to clarify, explore more thoroughly, & think about aspects they had not previously considered.
• Helpers play an active role in order to restate the essence & key components of the client’s messages and orients the client to what to talk about next.

Best Practices in Open-Ended Questions

• There are no right or wrong answers
• Be supportive & encouraging
• Short & simple
• One question at a time
• Focus on one part of the problem at a time
• Keep the focus on the client
• Keep the focus on current thoughts
• Avoid “why” questions
• Be aware of cultural differences

Sources for Reflection of Feelings

• Clients’ overt expressions of feelings
• Clients’ verbal content
• Clients’ nonverbal behavior
• Helpers’ projection of their own feelings onto clients

Forms of Reflection of Feelings

• “You feel X”
• “You feel X because Y”
• “I wonder if you’re feeling X?”
• “Perhaps you’re feeling X”
• “You sound (or seem) X”