how do you counsel?
- It’s about joining with a client and communicating effectively within the parameters of facilitating a shift or change.
- A “conversation with a purpose”.
- Specific communication tools are used to assist the counsellor in understanding what the client is REALLY saying.
- E.g., Underlying meaning.
- The underlying principle should always be one of beneficence – “first, do no harm”.
- Is the tool/strategy/microskill the right one for this client, at this time, in these circumstances?
reflective communication
a) Tuning into the client’s agenda, getting on the client’s wave length, perceiving the experience from within his/her ‘frame of reference’.
b) Reflecting that experience back to the client; holding it up in a manner that the client begins to get a clearer, sharper picture of their experience/thought(s)/feelings.
reflective communication is also
- Active listening.
- Client-centered.
- Exploratory.
- Non-(overtly) evaluative and non-judgmental.
- Non-directive.
- Empathic.
active listening
- Not just hearing.
- Not polite silence.
- Listening with your eyes.
- Looking for non-verbal discrepancies with what they are saying.
- Entering the client’s ‘frame of reference’.
- Being empathetic and understanding their experience.
- Communicating to the client that you are fully present.
- Requires a range of specific communication skills. Micro-skills are “individual skills that can be learnt which greatly enhance the quality and effectiveness of the counselling relationship”.
pysiological influencers
- Sensory acuity, especially auditory and visual, is basic to listening. Age-related deterioration of sensory mechanisms can lead to loss of both the verbal content and the nonverbal dimensions of the communication.
- Age also is an important listening variable. Children, adolescents, young adults, older adults, and elders report different listening needs, different listening goals, and different listening strategies as they account for listening expectations and for listening experiences alike.
- Gender: Brain imaging research demonstrate that men and women have different attention styles and cognitive processing styles to the communicative interaction.
- Men and women “learn to listen for different purposes and have different listening goals. The primary contrast appears in task versus interpersonal understanding: Males tend to hear facts, while females are more aware of the mood of the communication” (Booth-Butterfield, 1984, p. 39).
psychological influencers
- Attitudinal state: A positive listening attitude, along with listening knowledge, is a critical ingredient of effective listening. Be interested!
- Being open to hearing differing points of view and to speakers whose styles are not necessarily attractive or engaging.
- Those who are angry
- Positive listening attitudes are not often communicated: “You’re not listening.” “You never listen to me.” “Be quiet and listen.” We hear these comments more often than: “Thanks for listening” or “You’re a good listener.”
- Communication apprehension: “the fear of misinterpreting, inadequately processing, and/or not being able to adjust psychologically to messages sent by others” . Listening anxiety stemming from stressful situations can lead to distorted messages and misunderstandings.
- Roberts and Vinson (1998) determined that the importance of the topic is the crucial factor in establishing a listener’s willingness to listen.
- Listening preferences. Listeners choose different ways to listen: (1) a people-oriented style, which focuses on the emotional and relational aspects of a communication; (2) a content-oriented style, centred on processing complex information; (3) an action-oriented style, where the listener prefers clear, efficient information; and (4) a time-oriented style, where the listener has a preference for short, limited messages.
- Style 1 is more relevant to counselling.
contextual influencers
- Roles, culture, and time.
- Roles: We listen differently in different contexts: family members, friends, students, workers, or managers.
- Culture: Anthropologist Edward Hall described how different cultures manage information in different ways. Low-context cultures, such as the United States and Australia, require communicators to give and receive a considerable amount of verbal information, while high-context cultures, such as Japan and Saudi Arabia, requires less extensive verbal messages.
- Time: People deal with information differently at different times of the day. Information presented in the afternoon may be retained longer than that offered in the morning (Wolvin, 2009). Depends on individual patterns of alertness.
- Listeners can listen (and think) about four times faster than the normal conversation rate. There is a “time gap” in the system for attention to wander and to lose focus.
attending
• Deonstrating that you are present for the client.
• Checking comfort level.
• Do they need water or a different chair etc.
• Physical attending – SOLER.
• S- sitting square (facing the client).
• O- Open posture
• L - leaning forward
• E - eye contact
• R- relaxed
also, • Conveying availability and presence.
• Expressiveness.
• Mirroring posture.
Avoid stereotypical counsellor mannerisms.
observing
- Body language.
- Verbal-nonverbal congruence.
- Does the body language match what they are saying?
- Facial expressions.
- Para-language.
- Movements.
- Physical attire.
- Emotional state.
- Energy level.
- Dyadic interaction (couple counselling).
minimal responses
- Verbal: One or two words, a phrase, an utterance. For example: uh huh, mmmm, yes, and, okay.
- Non-verbal: A movement. For example: a nod of the head or movement of the arms or hands.
- Purpose:
- confirms active listening
- encourages client to keep talking
- emphasises significance
- establishes clarity
- Not:
- endorsing
- agreeing
- sympathising, consoling
- patting on the back
reflecting content
• Isolating the salient content of the client’s response.
• Reflecting that back to the client in a clear, more succinct manner.
• Must be brief, not an expansion or a random convoluted summary of content.
• Inaccurate paraphrases?
• Sometimes counsellors reflect something wrong
• The client feels autonomy to correct the therapist
• Can allow for clarification.
Not:
• Parroting.
• Interpreting.
• Labeling.
• Putting new ideas/thoughts into the client’s head.
reflecting feeling
- Isolating what the client is experiencing emotionally.
- Sensitive reflecting back to the client these feeling/s.
- Identifying both explicit and implicit expression of feeling.
- Identifying the level of intensity.
- Facilitating the expression of feelings and providing a ‘space’ for catharsis.
- Watch arbitrary labeling; giving clients feelings.
- Counsellor needs to deal with his/her feelings.
- Contributes most to building an empathic relationship.
- It’s important to practice:
- when I feel angry I feel…
- when I feel accepted I feel…
reflecting feeling and content
- With experience it is often convenient to link feeling with content in a single response:
- For example: you’re feeling betrayed because your sister went behind your back and spoke to your husband about your issues.
- The response must be skillfully integrated; succinct and not wordy.
- Reflection of feeling can at times be more powerful: helps client stay with the emotional experience rather than move to a head level.
- Helpful in checking congruence between client’s thoughts and feelings.
- Helpful in mirroring the intensity of the client’s experience, both cognitive or emotional.
questions
• Gathering relevant information.
• Clarifying client’s thoughts and feelings.
• Heighten client awareness.
• Used sparingly.
• More on the ‘open’ end of the continuum than on the ‘closed’.
• Assists client to open up, disclose more: to be more specific or behaviourally explicit.
• Help with getting a better understanding of the client’s experience.
• Help to access specific and relevant information.
• Avoid ‘why’ questions; focus on ‘what’, ‘when’, ‘where’, ‘how’.
Not:
• Intrusive; to satisfy counsellor’s curiosity; gather irrelevant information.
• Leading, directing, suggesting.
• Interrogating.
types of questions
- Transitional - establishing connections, links; often to an earlier part of the discussion. For example, earlier you mentioned ***, I’m wondering how you are feeling about that now?
- Exploring choice. For example, in what other ways could you respond to that?
- Circular - perspective of the other. For example, how do you imagine your brother would feel about ***?
- Scaling – tracking change. For example on a scale of 1 – 10, how useful was that strategy?
- Goaling - establishing direction. For example, if you could imagine not feeling stressed at work, what would the first improvement be?
- Leading – points the epective answer in a particular direction.
what to avoid in questioning
- Bombardment/grilling: asking too many questions one after the other. The counsellor is setting the agenda.
- Multiple questions: This occurs when counsellors ask several questions at once. For example “Please tell me about yourself – how old are you, where were you born, do you have any children and what do you do for a living?”
- Questions as statements: Using questions to sell your own points of view. For example, “Don’t you think it would be helpful if you studied more?” “What do you think of trying relaxation exercises instead of what you are doing now?” Also known as closed leading questions.
- Why questions: Generally, just don’t do it …
summarising
• Helps client stop and review the ground traversed.
• Reflecting back to the client salient aspects of his/her presenting issues.
• Helps to make connections, build bridges, identify themes.
• Sorts out disconnected material into more manageable units: helps client ‘see a pathway through the forest’.
• Could indicate a turning point, a moment of self evaluation, identification of a goal, a strategic pause.
• Timing and context are vital.
Not
• Always essential.
• A re-run of what has been covered.
• A tabulation of every issue that has been raised.
responses to avoid in counselling
- Moralising, preaching
- Advising
- Giving solutions
- Lecturing, logical arguments, debating
- Judging, evaluating disagreeing, blaming
- Praising, applauding
- Interpreting
- Analysing
- Diagnosing, labeling
- Reassuring, sympathising, consoling, minimising
- Interrogating, probing
- Humouring, diverting
- Completing sentences
