Midterm Examination Reviewer - Counseling Psychology PDF

MIDTERM EXAMINATION REVIEWER PSYCHELEC 411 – INTRODUCTION TO COUNSELING PSYCHOLOGY LESSON 5: COUNSELING SKILLS AND STRATEGIES COUNSELING SKILLS AND STRATEGIES WHAT IS COUNSELING? Defining the...

MIDTERM EXAMINATION REVIEWER PSYCHELEC 411 – INTRODUCTION TO COUNSELING PSYCHOLOGY LESSON 5: COUNSELING SKILLS AND STRATEGIES COUNSELING SKILLS AND STRATEGIES WHAT IS COUNSELING? Defining the Problem through Active Listening The American Psychological Association, Division of a non-directive tactic where the counselor responds to Counseling Psychology, Committee on Definition (1956), the client’s speech in ways that indicate understanding defined counseling as a process “to help individuals and facilitate further communication. toward overcoming obstacles to their personal growth, wherever these may be encountered, and toward 1. Attending achieving optimum development of their personal Client: My husband irritates me… resources” (p. 283). Counselor: umm-hmm Client: He picks on me for no reason at all. RA 10029 PRACTICE OF PSYCHOLOGY Counselor: please continue.. Client: We do not like each other. Psychological Intervention Psychological counseling 2. Reflecting Psychotherapy Client: When I get home in the evening, my house is a mess. Psychosocial support The kids are dirty… My husband does not care about dinner… I Coaching do not feel like going home at all. Psychological debriefing Counselor: You are not satisfied with the way the house chores Group process are organized. That irritates you. Individual, family, group or organization 3. Summarizing Psychological Assessment Counselor: We discussed your relationship with your husband. Gathering and integration of psychology related data for You said there were conflicts right from the start related to the the purpose of making psychological evaluation. way money was handled, and that he often felt you gave more importance to your friends. Yet on the whole, things went well Psychological Program and you were quite happy until 3 years ago. Then the conflicts became more frequent and more intense, so much so that he Development, planning, implementation, monitoring and left you twice and talked of divorce, too. Have I understood the evaluation of psychological treatment of individuals situation properly? and/or groups. Questioning NATURE AND SCOPE OF COUNSELING SERVICES Closed Question “Are you feeling sad today?” "Welcome. Are you ready for us to start?" Open Question “How are you feeling today?” Ask “what made you do that?” instead of “why did you do that?” UNIVERSAL COUNSELING SKILLS Universal Purpose Description Examples TYPES OF COUNSELING Skill Minimal To encourage Words or “Uh huh,” Individual Counseling encourages the client to phrase to help “Hmm,” “I continue client continue see,” a relationship between two people who meet so that one talking “Continue,” person can help the other resolve a problem. “Right” Paraphrase To give back Use a few “You have Couples Counseling the message words of the lots of going a type of counseling for intimate partners that involves in a different client to on right the exploration of any conflicts between them. way repeat the now.” message Family Counseling Reflection of To show Highlight what “You are often sought due to life changes or stress that negatively feeling awareness of has been said afraid to talk emotional with a feeling to him or affect one or all areas of family structure. parts of the word her.” story Group Counseling Reflection of To show Listen to the “No one a group process, in which the role of helper and helpee meaning undestanding story and takes time to can be shared and interchanged among the group of the reduce to core help you with members. meaning of meaning your the story homework.” 1  MIDTERM EXAMINATION REVIEWER PSYCHELEC 411 – INTRODUCTION TO COUNSELING PSYCHOLOGY Summary To capture the Make a “Let’s see Identifying/ To highlight Focus on “You seem content of the statement to you talked Building the strengths unrecognized to be so discussion sum up what about your strengths and assets of strengths quick to across time has been said classmates, the client understand your dog, other and your people.” soccer team Exploration To connect Ask about “Who will be and how you resources to resources, someone to take care of the goals of meanings, or encourage things with counseling allies you when all them.” you try this?” Empathy To use words Reflect back “It must have Affirmation To encourage Highlight “You seem or actions to the deeper been awful strengths and to be trying show meaning of to watch positive harder to get understanding what has been your cat die.” insights along with said your Prompts To help the Encourage by “Please tell teacher.” child add to highlighting or me more Providing To provide State the “You have to the story or asking for about when information facts information have 4 years continue with more about you are that is of English to more detail the story happy.” pertinent graduate.” Closed To get specific Ask a “Did you go Logical To give the Help the client “If you questions information question that to the consequences client a assess the decide to can be sleepover?” chance to pros and cons leave the answered with explore what of actions team, what one or two might happen will happen?” words as a result of Open questions To promote Ask a “How did you change discussion question to get Role-playing To have the Ask the client “Show me get more everything client practice to act out what how will you details done?” behaviors they want to act when you Scaling To identify the Ask the client “Help me see happen ask her to question intensity of a to put understand the dance.” situation something on this hope Homeworks To promote Give an “Between a scale such you have practice after assignment to now and as 10 to 1 about your sessions practice when we parents something meet again, getting back related to keep a count together. On counseling of how many a scale of 10 goals times you to 1 with 10 say hello to being people.” certain, where are There are as many counseling strategies as there are you?” theoretical orientations or approaches in counseling. Defining the To help direct Highlight what “You want problem the discussion the client me to help to the problem wants help you decide Consider your theory (e.g. psychoanalytic, Adlerian, and its with which high Existential, Person Centered, REBT, CBT, Reality management school to Therapy, Gestalt, and others) choose?” Defining goals/ To highlight State or ask “Talk to me Affective Behavioral Cognitive objectives/ what the client what you think about what Person-centered Operant Rational-emotive outcomes wants out of the client we can counseling wants from accomplish therapy, gestalt conditioning, therapy, counseling in our time therapy, body counter- cognitive together.” awareness conditioning, social therapy, Reframing To take the Take the gist “You help therapies, learning, multimodal transactional deeper of what’s been out at a psychodynamic therapy. analysis, reality meaning of said and move home a lot.” therapies, therapy. what’s been from a experiential said and state negative to therapies, it more more hopeful positively emotion-focused Exploring To help the Ask the client “What else therapies. alternatives client see to consider could be Active listening, Guided imagery, A-B-C-D-E other different going on?” empathy, positive role-playing, self- analysis; possibilities perspectives “What other regard, monitoring, reframing; ways could genuineness, physiological automatic you do that?” awareness recording, thinking and 2  MIDTERM EXAMINATION REVIEWER PSYCHELEC 411 – INTRODUCTION TO COUNSELING PSYCHOLOGY techniques, behavioral cognitive A-B-C-D-E ANALYSIS empty chair, contracting, distortions; 1. Client learns to recognize the activating event (A) (e.g. fantasy, dream assertiveness cognitive situation or person), that the client finds upsetting. work, training, social skills restructuring; 2. Client’s irrational thoughts or beliefs (B) about the activating bioenergetics, training, systematic ego grams; event are explored and identified. biofeedback, free desensitization, script analysis; 3. Counselor links the irrational beliefs with the resulting association, contingency choice theory emotional and behavioral consequences (C). transference contracting, action and personal 4. Counselor uses questions to dispute (D) the client’s analysis, dream planning, responsibility; irrational beliefs. analysis, counterconditioning, wants, direction, 5. New effects (E) such as lessened emotional distress, focusing relaxation and evaluation, and changes in behavior occur in the client. techniques, stress planning emotional management, (WDEP) system. LESSON 6: BASIC PROCESSES, ESSENTIALS, awareness and exposure therapies. STRATEGIES, TECHNIQUES OF COUNSELING regulation techniques. BASIC PROCESS OF COUNSELING Process influences the outcome. The process of counseling EMPATHY – what the counselor and a client do and experience in session implies that the counselor will sense clients’ feelings as if – affects the outcome, the success of counseling. To master the they were his or her own without becoming lost in those process, beginning counselor must develop a repertoire of feelings. helping skills as well as a theory of counseling that directs their also involves having good internal boundaries for yourself. application. feeding back clients’ feelings to them, without agreeing or disagreeing, reassuring or denying. 13 APPROACHES TO COUNSELING “Precious, I imagine you are pretty upset now about losing 1. Make Personal Contact – making contact means being your pet and your home too.” with the client, touching someone emotionally, communicating. POSITIVE REGARD 2. Develop a Working Alliance – the task of the counselor Carl Rogers (1957) described positive regard as is engage the client in such a way that both are working unconditional. More recent writers have relabeled positive together to resolve the issue that brought the client to regard as non possessive warmth. counseling. Positive regard—or non possessive warmth—is often 3. Explain Counseling to Client – Client frequently misunderstood as agreement or lack of disagreement with approach counseling to misconceptions about the the client. Instead, it is an attitude of valuing the client. process. Counselors also considered it an ethical To show positive regard is to express appreciation of the obligation to employ and explain informed consent forms client as a unique and worthwhile person. when beginning with new clients. 4. Pace and Lead the Client – pacing and leading refer to Examples: how much direction the counselor exerts with the client. Leah, the counselor, tells her supervisor that she has seen her 5. Speak Briefly – in general, counselor should talk less client, Pedro, for three sessions. She says she feels annoyed than their client. and frustrated with him because he comes in every session and 6. When You Don’t Know What to Say, Say Nothing – “whines about his low grades, ” which she believes are bad particularly in counseling, silence is golden. because of his constant partying. 7. You May Confront as Much as You’ve Supported – confrontation or challenging in counseling does not mean Maria is a young woman who has a chronic health condition that opposing the client but pointing out discrepancies limits her functioning in several ways. While Maria’s progress in between clients goal and their actions. counseling is also slow, Leah notes how much she looks forward 8. If You Want to Change Something, Process It – to each session with Maria and how supportive she is of her Counselors also employ the word process to describe the act of talking about something that is happening in the BEHAVIOR SKILLS TRAINING session. used to help clients develop skills that are not yet in their 9. Individualize Your Counseling – each counselor repertoire. eventually develops a personal style of counseling. Assertion training - a specialized form of behavioral skills 10. Notice Resistance and Avoidance – resistance refers training that teaches people how to be assertive in a to an obstacle – presented by the client – that influences variety of social situations. the process of the client. teaching people to express themselves in ways that reflect 11. When in Doubt, Focus on the Feelings – Counselor sensitivity to the feelings and rights of others. trust clients feelings – particularly as expressed on the People often behave in unassertive ways because they nonverbal level – as indicator as salient issues. don’t think they have a right to state a viewpoint or ask for 12. Plan For Termination at the Beginning of the what they want or deserve. Thus, their thinking leads to Counseling – begin laying the groundwork for successful passive behavior. termination from the very first session by describing therapy as a time-limited process. 3  MIDTERM EXAMINATION REVIEWER PSYCHELEC 411 – INTRODUCTION TO COUNSELING PSYCHOLOGY 13. Arrange the Physical Setting Appropriately – A well- 3. Come up with alternatives for comparison designed and comfortable space can help clients feel 4. Represent people more relaxed and open to sharing their thoughts and 5. Represent something which may need to be discarded feelings. D. Use of Sand and Tray COUNSELING STRATEGIES Sand-tray work has traditionally used with children, but can As human beings we are often troubled by harmful thoughts, be very useful when working with adolescents and even when uncomfortable feelings and emotions because of which we may working with some adults. end up in behaviors that have negative consequences. The central goal in counselling is to help people those in problems Generally the Sand and Tray can be use to help the client feel better and function more adaptively so that they can lead to: more satisfying lives. 1. Tell their stories We could use any of the strategies mentioned below or 2. Explore feelings, thoughts, situations and events a combination of the strategies. 3. Explore past, present, and future situations and events Symbolic Strategy 4. Gain an understanding of the elements or events Creative Strategy occurring in their life Behavioral and Creative Strategy Psycho Educative Strategy E. Use of Miniature Animal It involves the use of miniature animals which are used as SYMBOLIC STRATEGY symbols to represent people in the client’s family or social Symbolic strategy can be particularly useful in cases where setting. the issues troubling a client are so distressing or personal that they find it difficult to talk about the problem directly. By using The Method Involves Four Stages: symbols the client may be able to share his or her thoughts 1. Choosing Animals about issues which are difficult for them to discuss without 2. Arranging the Animals in the Picture directly talking about these issues. 3. Exploring Various Configurations or Positions 4. Rearranging the Animals in a New Picture The five symbolic strategies are as follows: A. Use of Metaphor CREATIVE STRATEGY B. Use of Ritual Some counselors automatically assume that the phrase C. Use of Symbols creativity in counseling is limited to art therapy, drama therapy D. Use of Sand and Tray and certain other experiential techniques. E. Use of Miniature Animals These are the four types of creative strategy: A. Use of Metaphor A. Art A metaphor is a figure of speech containing an implied B. Role Play comparison: it expresses one thing in terms of something else. C. Journal (Diary Writing) Rather than directly explaining some specific aspects or D. Dream Logs situations that has happened in a client’s life, the metaphor provides an alternative description. A. Art Visual arts are non-threatening for most adolescents and this Metaphor can be used in: provides a way for them to express innermost thoughts, feelings 1. Exploring and extending clients own metaphor or ideas. 2. Inventing a metaphor to describe a particular event or situation Art can be used in counseling to: 3. Using a metaphor to tell a story 1. Understand Current Issue and Problem 2. Explore Feelings B. Use of Ritual 3. Develop Insight (Gain More Depth) Rituals form part of the lives of everyone. They are used to mark occasions an events. Letter-writing can be used as a ritual. B. Role Play This is a process of putting down on paper thoughts and feelings Role play is a learning process where the participants take which have not been openly expressed. This letter does not on the role of specific individuals in order to meet particular have to be sent. The ritual will be completed just in writing the learning objectives. letter. Role play can be used for the following purposes to: C. Use of Symbol 1. Gain an understanding of roles and responsibilities Symbols that are used in counseling are specific physical 2. Get in touch with feelings objects which can be used to represent feelings, thoughts, 3. Explore parts of the self beliefs, people, relationships and a range of other things. 4. Make choices 5. Externalize beliefs and feelings Symbols can be used to: 6. Practice and experiment with new behaviors. 1. Access and disclose information 2. Get in touch with and explore feelings 4  MIDTERM EXAMINATION REVIEWER PSYCHELEC 411 – INTRODUCTION TO COUNSELING PSYCHOLOGY Example of a self-rating scale: C. Journal (Dairy Writing) My hand writing is Serves as a running record of the clients subjective experience of daily life. The headings may be as follows: 1. What I did B. Inventories 2. How I viewed the day Inventories or questionnaires are used to collect both 3. How I felt emotionally quantitative and qualitative information. A questionnaire refers 4. Relationships or lack of relationships to a device for securing answer to questions by using a form 5. Things learnt from today which the person or respondents fills himself or herself. After the questions are answered, the scores will be mentioned in the D. Dream Logs questionnaire from which one can understand how s/he has Dreams can be a very useful way of helping clients access fared in the assessment. important personal information. For this the client can be asked to keep a log of their dreams. COUNSELING TECHNIQUES The log preferably should be written in three parts – the Means the application of basic counseling and content of the dream; the emotional feelings experienced during psychotherapy skills and theories in the counseling process for the dream; thoughts about the dream. the purposes of establishing and maintaining the counseling relationship; diagnosing the problem; formulating a preventative, BEHAVIORAL COGNITIVE STRATEGIES treatment, or rehabilitative plan; and facilitating appropriate Behavioral and Cognitive strategies have been successful to interventions. varying degrees, when working with adolescents who are anxious, depressed, aggressive and unmotivated and with There are three major techniques used in counseling: adolescents who have difficulty with interpersonal and social A. Directive Counseling skills. B. Non-Directive Counseling A client who has self-destructive beliefs can be helped if C. Eclectic Counseling these beliefs are challenged. A. DIRECTIVE COUNSELING Below are some examples: In this counseling the counselor plays an active role as it is Self-Destructive Constructive Beliefs regarded as a means of helping people how to learn to solve Beliefs their own problems. This type of counseling is otherwise known as counselor-centered counseling. I must confirm to my I can be an individual It has the following features: peers and do my 1. During the interview attention is focused upon a particular own thing. problem and possibilities for its solution. 2. During the interview the counselor plays a more active role Other people should live Other people won’t live than the client. up to my expectations up to my 3. The client makes the decision, but the counselor does all expectations. that he can to get the counselee or client makes a decision in keeping with his diagnosis. 4. The counselor tries to direct the thinking of the counselee I never succeed in Sometimes I succeed or client by informing, explaining, interpreting and advising him. anything and sometimes I fail. I am human and I am OK. Steps in Directive Counseling: 1. Analysis: In this step data is collected from a variety of sources for an adequate understanding of the client. PSYCHO EDUCATIVE STRATEGIES 2. Synthesis: This step implies organizing and Here we will discuss a range of educational strategies which summarizing the data to find out the assets, liabilities, teach clients about life and also help them to gain more control adjustments and mal-adjustments of the client. over their behaviors. Two simple psycho-educative strategies 3. Diagnosis: Formulating conclusions regarding the which can be used to enable clients find out and share nature and causes of the problems expressed by the information about themselves are : client is the major concern of this step. A. Rating Scale 4. Prognosis: This step implies predicting the future B. Inventory development of the problem of client. 5. Counseling: This step indicates taking steps by the A. Rating Scale counselor with the pupil to bring about adjustment in life. Rating scales can be used to rate and monitor intensity, 6. Follow-up: This step implies. severity or frequency of behaviors. A rating scale is an instrument that requires the rater to assign the rated object that Role of the Counselor in Directive Counseling: have numerals assigned to them. The counselor does most of the talking problems and individual is not the focus. The counselee in fact, works under 5  MIDTERM EXAMINATION REVIEWER PSYCHELEC 411 – INTRODUCTION TO COUNSELING PSYCHOLOGY the counselor and not with him. The counsellor tries to direct the thinking of the counselee or client by informing, explaining, interpreting and sometimes advising also. B. NON-DIRECTIVE COUNSELING In this type of counseling the counselee or client, not the counselor is the pivot of the counseling process. He plays an active role and this type of counseling is a growing process. In this counseling the goal is the independence and integration of the client rather than the solution of the problem. Steps in Non-Directive Counseling: 1. The client or individual comes for help as the counselee. 2. The counselor defines the situation by indicating that he doesn’t have the answer but he is able to provide a place and an atmosphere in which the client can think of the answers or solutions to his problems. 3. The counselor is friendly, interested and encourages free expression of feeling regarding the problem of the individual. 4. The counselor tries to understand the feeling of the individual or client. 5. The counselor accepts and recognizes the positive as well as the negative feelings. 6. The period of release or free expression is followed by a gradual development of insight. 7. As the client recognizes and accepts emotionally as well as intellectually his real attitudes and desires, he perceives the decisions that he must make and the possible courses of action open to him. 8. Positive steps towards the solution of the problem situation begin to occur. 9. A decreased need for help is felt and the client is the one who decides to end the contract. C. ECLECTIC COUNSELING Eclectic counseling is a combination of directive and non- directive technique depending upon the situational factors. This approach in counseling is best characterized by its freedom to the counselor to use whatever procedures or techniques seem to be the most appropriate to any particular time for any particular client. Features/Characteristics of Eclectic Counselling: 1. Methods of counselling may change from counselee to counselee or even with the same client from time to time. 2. Flexibility is the key note of this counselling. 3. Freedom of choice and expression is open to both, the counsellor and the client. 4. The client and the philosophical framework are adjusted to serve the purposes of the relationship. 5. Experience of mutual confidence and faith in the relationship are basic. 6. Feelings of comfort are essential. 6