The “Course Topics” series from Manage Train Learn and Slide Topics is a collection of over 4000 slides that will help you master a wide range of management and personal development skills. The 202 PowerPoints in this series offer you a complete and in-depth study of each topic. This presentation is on "Challenging and Closing Down".

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Challenging and Closing Down
Counselling Skills
MTL Course Topics
COUNSELLING SKILLS
Challenging and Closing Down

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Challenging and Closing Down
Counselling Skills
MTL Course Topics
The Course Topics series from Manage Train Learn is a large collection of topics that will help you as a learner
to quickly and easily master a range of skills in your everyday working life and life outside work. If you are a
trainer, they are perfect for adding to your classroom courses and online learning plans.
COURSE TOPICS FROM MTL
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Challenging and Closing Down
Counselling Skills
MTL Course Topics
ARE YOU READY?
OK, LET’S START!

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Challenging and Closing Down
Counselling Skills
MTL Course Topics
INTRODUCTION
The counselling approach has no validity as a workplace
technique unless it has the power to move people on. If it
sticks at the exploratory stage, then it is counselling as
sympathetic ear and shoulder-to-cry-on, neither of which
are of long-term value to individuals or the organisation.
Instead, the manager has to move people on. He or she can
do this by reflecting back where people are; offering
support as they struggle for answers; and helping them take
the first tentative steps that lead to personal change.

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Challenging and Closing Down
Counselling Skills
MTL Course Topics
CHALLENGING
Some counselling sessions do not need to move from the
exploring stage into a challenging or confronting stage
because people see for themselves what they need to face
up to and go into the change or solution stage. However,
where this does not happen, the counsellor needs to
confront people with those things that don't fit.
There are seven reasons for challenging:
1. to point something vital out that the employee cannot
see
2. to highlight blocks and blind spots
3. to re-dress an employee's one-sided or blinkered view of
things
4. to suggest how you see the situation
5. to boil issues down to their basics
6. to indicate possible outcomes if people don't change
7. to encourage people to move on.

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Challenging and Closing Down
Counselling Skills
MTL Course Topics
THE TIMING OF CHALLENGE
The classic shape of a counselling session involves a
progression from contracting through exploration and
challenging into solutions and endings. This progression is
not necessarily linear and doesn't always proceed at the
same pace.
Some counsellors try to reach the challenging phase as
quickly as possible especially if they already have an idea
where a problem lies. This can be dangerous if a client is not
ready for it. On the other hand, some clients like to stay in
the relative comfort of the exploration phase in order to
avoid facing up to things. In this case it is important to stop
discussion of the past and face up to the needs of the
present.
The timing of challenging is a trade-off between taking as
long as the counselling needs and facing up to action.

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Counselling Skills
MTL Course Topics
OUT IN THE OPEN
People may be reluctant to move on in counselling because
to do so means facing issues they don't want to face. These
may be areas that they keep hidden behind facades or areas
that they refuse to acknowledge such as their blind spots.
Even if people don't accept full responsibility, the mere fact
that you have discussed these issues means that you have
brought things out into the open. Things can never be quite
the same again.
The psychoanalyst Alfred Adler coined the phrase "spits in
the soup" to describe the result of bringing things out into
the open. Once our discrepancies, irrational thinking
patterns and defence mechanisms are pointed out, the old
ways of thinking, like "spits in the soup", have become
sullied and are no longer quite as palatable.

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Counselling Skills
MTL Course Topics
IRRATIONAL THINKING
Many of our problems arise from irrational thinking
patterns. These patterns are often called the tyranny of the
"shoulds", or "must-abations". There are nine common
"must-abations":
1. I must work hard all the time or I will fail.
2. You must be nice towards me or else you are bad.
3. I must win approval for everything I do or else I'm
worthless.
4. When I feel miserable, it comes from outside; I can't
control my feelings.
5. I have to work out why things happen as they do.
6. I must have a high degree of order in my life in order to
feel safe.
7. I need to experience all that life has to offer.
8. I must be in charge.
9. I can only achieve happiness by avoiding life's problems.

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Challenging and Closing Down
Counselling Skills
MTL Course Topics
DISCREPANCIES
Discrepancies are the things which don't fit. Sometimes
employees are too close to their personal issues to see what
doesn't fit. A manager acting as counsellor can point them
out.
Discrepancies can exist in many different ways. Here are
three examples:
1. Body Language, eg, "You say you like the job, but you
frown when you say it."
2. Statements, eg, "Robert, you say you like working here.
Then you say you don't like the way things are
organised."
3. Positions, eg, "Julie, your contract says you have to
work these hours, but you're saying you can't guarantee
to work them."

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Counselling Skills
MTL Course Topics
INCONGRUENCE
As children we are very good at congruence, or making
things fit. When we want something, we line up everything
to get it: our goals, our values, our actions, our expressions,
our reasoning, our feelings, our needs. As adults, things
don't always fit so neatly.
Incongruent Positions:
"Yes, I do work here.
Yes, I have a contract.
Yes, I have missed some days.
Yes, I know I'm supposed to do what she says.
Yes, I did say she could stuff her job.
Yes, I still want to work here.“
Incongruent Signals in body language and words, such as
the person who clenches their fist and says: "I'm not angry".

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Counselling Skills
MTL Course Topics
LINKING
Pointing out things that link together in a situation is the
opposite of pointing out discrepancies. In discrepancies, we
show people what seems to contradict, in linking we show
them what seems to be the same.
For example, "Julie, did you know that you described your
colleagues here in the same way as you described your
colleagues in your old job?"
"Sue, you say you've been very depressed for six months.
Wasn't that around the time you had your miscarriage?“
These observations may be so obvious that it is tempting to
not make them. However, they may not be at all obvious to
the client for whom they can come as a ray of light. Even if
they are already known to the client, your pointing them
out will show them how empathic you are.

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Counselling Skills
MTL Course Topics
REFLECTING BACK
Reflecting back is one of the most effective ways to confront
a person who is taking an unreasonable stance.
Consider, for example, a person who is receiving counselling
because of their attitude to certain other staff. He says in an
unguarded moment: "I can't stand the way the new staff are
taking over". A reflecting-back response could put their
words back to them: "You think the new staff are taking
over?" The starkness of the question together with a non-
judgmental tone of voice can bring home to the person how
prejudiced and exaggerated their position is.
Another example might be the employee who reels off a list
of trivial reasons for not doing a job. If the counsellor
repeats them quietly and without confrontation, the
employee might respond: "Yes, I suppose they do all sound
like excuses, don't they?"

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Counselling Skills
MTL Course Topics
NOT GETTING IN THEIR WAY
One of the best examples of using a reflect-back or
empathic approach in counselling comes from Alfred
Benjamin who is debriefing a counsellor after a session with
a young lady disabled in a car accident.
This is how the conversation goes: “When Lucy said, “I’ll
never get married now that I’m disabled”, what did you do?
You know you felt terrible. You felt that the whole world had
caved in on her. But what did you say? What did you show?
Did you help her to bring it all out? To hear and examine it?
You almost said, “Don’t be foolish. You’re young and pretty
and smart and who knows, perhaps… But you didn’t. You
simply looked at her and weren’t afraid to feel what you
both felt. Then you said, “Right now, you feel that your
whole life has been ruined by this accident”.
“That’s just it,” she replied and cried bitterly.
After a while, she continued talking. She was still disabled
but you hadn’t gotten in the way of her hating it and
confronting it!”

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Counselling Skills
MTL Course Topics
CHALLENGING RESPONSES
As well as pointing out discrepancies, incongruences and
links, we can also challenge the faulty thinking of people
who are stuck in the way they see things.
1. Distortions: "Is this really the worst time of your life?"
2. Blow Ups And Exaggerations: "Does he really always do
that?"
3. False Logic: "Are you sure he'll react the way you
think?"
4. All-or-nothing Thinking: "Why do you think he's bound
to say "No"?"
5. Perfectionism: "Would he really not be willing to forgive
you?"
6. Obsessions: "Is there no other way out?"
7. Excuses For Inaction: "Why exactly does your mother's
health mean you can't leave home?"
8. Games, Tricks and Smoke-screens: "Is it possible that
he could be wanting your help?".

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Counselling Skills
MTL Course Topics
INTERVENTIONS
A counsellor can intervene to move people on in three
ways:
1. Supportive Interventions. These include:
doing nothing while letting people work things out for
themselves
silence
support for their ideas
questions that help them clarify their own ideas.
2. Persuasive Interventions. These include:
questions to move people on
suggesting choices and paths
suggesting action.
3. Directive Interventions. These include:
telling them what to do
making the choice for the person
guidance.

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Counselling Skills
MTL Course Topics
GENTLE SUGGESTION
When a person confronts those obstacles that are blocking
them, they invariably need help to move to the stage of
what to do next. This requires an intervention from the
counsellor that doesn't feel like an intervention: the art of
gentle suggestion.
1. Ask Questions That Move People On: "Are you ready to
look at some options?"
2. Suggest Choices: "You could speak to someone who's
been through the same problems."
3. Suggest Pathways: "Graham signed on with AA just for
an initial period. Have you thought about that?"
4. Share Ideas: "Speak to Jan. She has lots of contacts and
is an expert in this area."
5. Guide People: "There are several self-help groups in this
area. If you want, I could get you the numbers."

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Counselling Skills
MTL Course Topics
THAT’S
IT!
WELL DONE!

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Counselling Skills
MTL Course Topics
THANK YOU
This has been a Slide Topic from Manage Train Learn