COUNSELING SKILLS

1. TOPIC :
INTEGRATIVE SKILLS, INFLUENCING SKILLS, CAPACITY
FORMING SKILLS, ELICITING AND REFLECTING SKILLS.

2. COUNSELLING SKILLS
 The process of assisting and guiding clients, especially by a
trained person on a professional basis, to resolve especially
personal, social, or psychological problems and difficulties is
called counselling skills.
 Counselling skills are obviously of utmost importance to
counselors, the counselor will attempt to build a certain amount
of rapport with their client, but not to an extent that would allow
them to become emotionally involved.

3. INTEGRATIVE SKILLS
 Integrative skills such as active listening, advanced empathy etc.
are used to enable the client to experience the therapeutic benefits
of a helping human encounter.

4. INFLUENCING SKILLS
 Influence is a governing concept in any decision-making process,
relationship and ultimately, behavioural response.
 It is also the raw material for the production of concepts such as
power, persuasion, attraction, and many others which are highly
relevant in our daily lives
 Influence is a part of all interviewing and counselling.
 Ivey & Ivey (2003) cites three general interpersonal influencing
skills (confrontation, focusing and reflection of meaning), along
with other six more skills that can be employed in a counselling
session (interpretation/reframe, logical consequences, self-
disclosure, feedback, information and directives).

5.  Confrontation helps clients face themselves realistically, especially as
they interact with other people.
 It is a direct technique with an open, honest identification of self-
defeating patterns and manipulations.
 This technique challenges clients to reconcile and integrate those
aspects of themselves that are in conflict.
 Focusing aims to direct the focus of the client to another area, helping
them generate a new perspective towards their own story.
 Reflection of meaning is similar to the process of reframing, when the
client builds a new perspective towards a problem. In reflection of
meaning, however, the client will assign new meanings to his or her
situation in order to derive a positive perspective towards it.

6. TYPES OF INFLUENCING SKILLS
 Interpretation/ reframing
 Directive
 Advice/information
 Self-disclosure
 Feedback
 Logical consequences
 Influencing summary

7. INTERPRETATION/ REFRAMING
 Reframing is a commonly used skill in counselling.
 The objective of this skill is to help the client build a positive
perspective towards a problem in order to take effective action.
 It involves using a different frame of reference towards a problem.
 Interpretation and reframing are perhaps the central influencing
skills, for in using these approaches the counselor or therapist most
directly seeks to help clients find new meaning to old stories and
behaviors.

8. DIRECTIVE
 It tells the client what action to take. It may be a simple
suggestion stated in command form or a sophisticated technique
from a specific theory.

9. ADVICE/INFORMATION
 It provides suggestions, instructional ideas, homework, advice on
how to act, think, or behave. Providing information and broad
suggestion can introduce clients to new possibilities, highlight
alternatives and inspire new ways of approaching old problems.

10. SELF-DISCLOSURE
 Self-disclosure involves the counsellor disclosing personal information
which is relevant (or supportive) to the client’s decision-making
process.
 It is normally used as a motivational factor which helps the client
concentrate on the positive aspects of a situation.
 It tends to create additional trust and rapport in the relationship. The
interviewer shares personal experience from the past or may share
present reactions to the client.

11. FEEDBACK
 Feedback involves giving concise information to the client which
he or she will be able to use as reference for improvement.
 It should concentrate on the positive aspects of the individual,
and how he can explore certain possibilities in order to achieve
further improvement.
 Provides clients with specific data on how they are seen by the
counselor or by others.

12. LOGICAL CONSEQUENCES
 Logical consequences enable the client to visualise possible
outcomes of alternative actions, thus looking at positive
possibilities and concentrating on achieving those.
 Interviewer explains to the client the logical outcome of thinking
and behavior if/then.

13. INFLUENCING SUMMARY
 This skill is often used at or near the end of a session to
summarize counsellor’s comments because it gives structure to
casual random conversation; most often it is used in combination
with the attending summarization.

14. ELICITING SKILLS
 The elicit skills involves asking, listening, and informing. It
continues through the use of evocative questions, affirmations,
complex reflections and summaries.

15. REFLECTING SKILLS
 Reflecting is the process of paraphrasing and restating both the
feelings and words of the client. The purposes of reflecting are:-
 To allow the client to 'hear' their own thoughts and to focus on
what they say and feel.
 To show the client that you are trying to perceive the world as
they see it and that you are doing your best to understand their
messages.
 To encourage them to continue talking.

16.  Reflecting does not involve you asking questions, introducing a
new topic or leading the conversation in another direction.
 Clients are helped through reflecting as it not only allows them to
feel understood, but it also gives them the opportunity to focus
their ideas.
 This in turn helps them to direct their thoughts and further
encourages them to continue speaking.

17. TWO MAIN TECHNIQUES OF REFLECTING:
 Mirroring
 Mirroring is a simple form of reflecting and involves repeating
almost exactly what the client says.
 Mirroring should be short and simple.
 It is usually enough to just repeat key words or the last few
words spoken. This shows you are trying to understand the
client’s terms of reference and acts as a prompt for him or her to
continue. Be aware not to over mirror as this can become
irritating and therefore a distraction from the message.

18.  Paraphrasing
 Paraphrasing involves using other words to reflect what the client
has said.
 Paraphrasing shows not only that you are listening, but that you
are attempting to understand what the client is saying.
 It is often the case that people 'hear what they expect to hear' due
to assumptions, stereotyping or prejudices.
 When paraphrasing, it is of utmost importance that you do not
introduce your own ideas or question the client’s thoughts,
feelings or actions.

19.  Responses should be non-directive and non-judgmental.
 It is very difficult to resist the temptation to ask questions and
when this technique is first used, reflecting can seem very stilted
and unnatural.
 We need to practice this skill in order to feel comfortable.

20.  The most immediate part of a client's message is the content, in
other words those aspects dealing with information, actions,
events and experience, as verbalised by them.
 Reflecting content helps to give focus to the situation but, at the
same time, it is also essential to reflect the feelings and emotions
expressed in order to more fully understand the message.
 A skilled listener will be able to reflect a client's feelings from
body cues (non-verbal) as well as verbal messages.

21.  It is sometimes not appropriate to ask such direct questions as
“How does that make you feel?” Strong emotions such as love
and hate are easy to identify, whereas feelings such as affection,
guilt and confusion are much more subtle.
 The listener must have the ability to identify such feelings both
from the words and the non-verbal cues, for example body
language, tone of voice, etc.

22.  Intensity Emotion
 “You feel a little bit sad/angry?”
 “You feel quite helpless/depressed?”
 “You feel very stressed?”
 “You feel extremely embarrassed?”

23.  Reflecting needs to combine content and feeling to truly reflect
the meaning of what the client has said. For example:
 Client: “I just don't understand my boss. One minute he says one
thing and the next minute he says the opposite.”
 Counselor: “You feel very confused by him?”
 Reflecting meaning allows the listener to reflect the client's
experiences and emotional response to those experiences.
 It links the content and feeling components of what the client has
said.

24. GUIDELINES FOR REFLECTING
 Be natural.
 Listen for the basic message - consider the content, feeling and
meaning expressed by the client.
 Restate what you have been told in simple terms.
 When restating, look for non-verbal as well as verbal cues that
confirm or deny the accuracy of your paraphrasing. (Note that
some clients may pretend you have got it right because they feel
unable to assert themselves and disagree with you.)

25.  Do not question the client unnecessarily.
 Do not add to the clients meaning.
 Do not take the client's topic in a new direction.
 Always be non-directive and non-judgmental.

26. THANK YOU