The document discusses the core elements and skills of effective counseling. It identifies some key goals of counseling as providing relief from symptoms, helping with self-understanding and behavior change, and facilitating spiritual growth. The most important part of counseling is building a relationship based on warmth, genuineness and empathy. Effective counseling skills include active listening, asking questions, reflecting, encouraging, and teaching new skills. The counseling process typically involves connecting, exploring issues, planning solutions, making progress, and eventually ending the formal relationship.

1. The Core of Counseling
Counseling is a skill. You learn it by doing.
Dr. Danny B. Medina

2. The Goals of Counseling
1.Relief from symptoms.
2.Self-understanding.
3.Learning new skills.
4.Help in changing behavior.

3. The Goals of Counseling
5.Resolving conflict.
6.Support and
encouragement.
7.Spiritual growth.
8.Self-development.

4. The Relationship in Counseling
At the core of effective
counseling is a
relationship marked by
warmth, genuineness,
and empathy.

5. Skills in Counseling
1. Attending Skills.
a) eye contact—looking
without staring as a way
to convey concern and
understanding.

6. Skills in Counseling
1. Attending Skills.
b) posture, which should be
relaxed rather than tense
(nobody feels comfortable
with an up-tight counselor)
and may involve at least
occasional leaning toward the
counselee.

7. Skills in Counseling
1. Attending Skills.
c) Gestures, including
head nods, that are
natural but not
excessive or distracting.

8. Skills in Counseling
2. Listening Skills
a.Being able to set aside your own
conflicts, biases, and preoccupations so
you can concentrate on what the
counselee is communicating.
b.Avoiding subtle verbal or nonverbal
expressions of disapproval or judgment
about what is being said, even when
the content is offensive or shocking.

9. Skills in Counseling
2. Listening Skills
c.Using both your eyes and your ears to
detect messages that come from the
tone of voice, pace of talking, ideas
that are repeated, posture, gestures,
facial expressions, and other clues
apart from what the person is saying.
d.Hearing not only what the counselee
says, but noticing what gets left out.

10. Skills in Counseling
2. Listening Skills
e. Noticing the counselee’s physical
characteristics and general appearance such
as grooming and dress.
f. Waiting patiently through periods of silence
or tears as the counselee summons enough
courage to share something painful or
pauses to collect his or her thoughts and
regain composure.

11. Skills in Counseling
2. Listening Skills
g. Looking at the counselee as he or she speaks, but
without either staring or letting our eyes wander
around the room.
h. Realizing that you can accept the counselee, even
though you may not condone his or her actions,
values, or beliefs. Sometimes, it can be helpful to
imagine yourself in the counselee’s situation and
attempt to see things from his or her point of
view.

12. Skills in Counseling
3. Responding Skills
a. Leading is a skill that lets the counselor
gently direct the conversation.
“What happened next?” “Tell me what you
mean by …? “Then what?” “come back to
the thing you were telling me before.…”

13. Skills in Counseling
3. Responding Skills
b. Reflecting is a way of letting
counselees know that we are “with
them” and able to understand how
they feel or think.
“You must feel …,” “I bet that was
frustrating,” “That must have been fun,”
“You must think …” or “I hear you saying …”

14. Skills in Counseling
3. Responding Skills
c. Summarizing what has been going on
also can be a way of reflecting and
stimulating more counselee
exploration.
“that must have hurt, ” “from all of this it
sounds as though you have had a whole
string of failures”

15. Skills in Counseling
3. Responding Skills
d. Supporting and
encouraging are important
parts of any counseling
situation, especially at the
beginning.

16. Skills in Counseling
3. Responding Skills
e. Interpreting involves
explaining to the
counselee what his or her
behavior or other events
mean.

17. Skills in Counseling
4. Questioning Skills
The best questions are those that require at
least a few sentences to answer (e.g., “Tell
me about your marriage.” “What sorts of
things are making you unhappy?”) rather
than those that can be answered in one
word (“Are you married?” “Are you
unhappy?” “What is your age?”).

18. Skills in Counseling
4. Questioning Skills
Prompting and probing are special forms of
questioning that help people talk in more
detail about themselves. These prompts and
probes may not always sound like questions;
sometimes they are more like interjections.
Examples are “Tell me more about that?”
“What happened then?” “So … ?” “Then … ?”
“What do you mean by ‘the things that’ … ?”
This means that … ?”

19. Skills in Counseling
6. Teaching Skills
The counselor is an educator who uses
different ways to teach: instruction,
modeling, telling brief stories, pointing to
movies or video recordings that can be
helpful, and guiding counselees as they
learn by experience to deal with the
problems of life.

20. Skills in Counseling
6. Teaching Skills
a. The immediacy response
The ability of a counselor and counselee to
discuss openly and directly what is happening in the
“immediate” here-and-now of the relationship. “I
think our conversation has stalled,” a counselor
might say, for example, or “I feel that you are
resisting every thing that I say.”

21. Skills in Counseling
6. Teaching Skills
b. Informing
Involves giving facts to people who need
information. Try to avoid giving too much
information at any one time.

22. Skills in Counseling
6. Teaching Skills
c. Filtering
The ability to sort out what
the counselee is saying to come
out with the true story.

23. The Process of Counseling
1. Connecting
Often termed rapport building,
this involves initiating, building,
and maintaining a relationship
between the counselor and
counselee.

24. The Process of Counseling
2. Exploring
This is a time when counselees
are encouraged to share their
feelings, talk about their
thoughts, and describe their
actions and symptoms.

25. The Process of Counseling
3. Planning
In time, the counselee begins to
see the problem in a different
light, and discussion moves
toward goals and actions that can
be taken to find solutions.

26. The Process of Counseling
4. Progressing
After people decide what
needs to be done, they must be
encouraged to start moving toward
their goals. The counselor gives
support, direction, encouragement,
and often gentle prodding.

27. The Process of Counseling
5. Stopping
In time, both the counselor and
counselee back away from their
more intense problem-solving
relationship. Often there is a
summarizing of what has been
learned or accomplished.

28. Theories of Counseling
Theories can guide counselors in their
work, but there is no one theory that has
been shown to be better than all others.
In general, depending on the problem,
the theories that help people learn new
behaviors tend to be somewhat better.

29. Taking Counseling Home
Counselors often give
homework assignments to
help people keep moving
forward between counseling
sessions.

30. Taking Counseling Home
Written assignments.
Discussions and study
guides.
Assignments to monitor or
change specific behaviors.

31. Taking Counseling Home
Reading.
Referral to Internet
resources.
Use of audio and video
recordings
Other computer resources.

32. Taking Counseling Home
Reading.
Referral to Internet
resources.
Use of audio and video
recordings
Other computer resources.

33. Groups and Counseling
Sometimes, counselees
improve best when they can
meet with other counselees
in groups.
You can grow as a counselor.