Counselling Session Critique
Introduction
The purpose of this paper is to analyze and critique the counseling skills used by the counselor in the Community Services Example Counseling Role Play video clip in the light of the Relational Model. The relational skills model consists of four phases, including setting up the relationship, developing the relationship, working with the relationship, the established relationship, and maintaining and ending the relationship. The paper specifically identifies areas where the counselor performed well and areas that need improvement. Overall, the counselor performed exceptionally well and appeared to have contributed to a successful counseling session.
Setting up the Relationship
The initial step involves setting up the relationship with the client. This phase is important because the person seeking help is reading the nonverbal and verbal messages and making inferences regarding the counseling environment and the counselor. For this phase to be successful, the counselor must apply strategic and convincing communication techniques such as attending and active listening skills; build rapport; and provide a safe counseling environment (Midwinter & Dickson, 2015). Most of these elements were demonstrated by the counselor in the Role Play video clip.
In the video clip, the counselor builds rapport by warmly welcoming and greeting the client to the service and then introduces herself. The counselor called the client by name and then introduced herself. Building rapport and creating a safe counseling climate is important in the service (Nelson-Jones, 2014). The counselor engaged the client in some small talk by inquiring about the means of transport she used and how she found the traffic. This made the client feel comfortable and relaxed in the counseling environment (Midwinter & Dickson, 2015). It also provided an opportunity for both the client and counselor to get to know each other. This welcoming gesture created a safe atmosphere for the client to share personal details regarding her feelings and thoughts. The goal of this small talk is to build rapport with the client (Ivey, Ivey & Zalaquett, 2013). Rapport is important for the therapeutic connection to be successful. The counselor demonstrated appropriate rapport for the counseling process. Convincing communication skills are vital in winning over the client. Communication techniques such as active listening, questioning format, paraphrasing, and summarizing are used to improve the effectiveness of the counseling process (Ertelt, Schulz, & Frey, 2022). These techniques also allowed the counselor to prompt for additional information or adequately reflect the client’s concerns (Midwinter & Dickson, 2015).
The counselor took a moment to explain the service and to address the issue of privacy and confidentiality and the limits to privacy and confidentiality. The counselor explained that she had learned some background information about Julie based on the forms filled out by the client. She also assures the client that whatever is shared during the session remains confidential and private unless the client poses a risk to self or others (Brammer & MacDonald, 2013). By assuring that this is a safe place, the client is able to talk openly, freely, and honestly about their feelings without fear (Prout & Brown, 2012). The client responded well, while also making good eye contact and a happier demeanor. The counselor managed well to strike a balance between words and tone.
The counselor used active listening to understand the client’s story. She showed undivided attention to the client through eye contact, paraphrasing, and asking open-ended questions. The counselor actively listened to the client and reflected on the client’s feelings and thoughts (Cochran & Cochran, 2015). Her natural, relaxed posture, eye contact, and clear but soft voice showed caring skills. Listening skills are vital when interacting with a client (Capuzzi & Gross, 2013). The counselor demonstrated attending skills very effectively. Maintaining good eye contact and looking at the client is a show of respect and value for the client (Cochran & Cochran, 2015). By slowing down the speech, the counselor made the client feel relaxed not rushed. Attending skills are important as they allow the client to assess whether the counselor is able to help them. It is a kind of social proof. The counselor not only gave full attention but also asked questions and paraphrased what the client said (Capuzzi & Gross, 2013).
Developing the Relationship
The second phase of the relational skills model involves developing the relationship. This is where the counselor identifies and assesses the problem faced by the client while still strengthening the relationship built earlier (Midwinter & Dickson, 2015). The counselor uses core skills to extract possible information about the client’s problems and grievances (Midwinter & Dickson, 2015). The core skills applied include asking questions, paraphrasing, reflecting feelings, and summarizing. These skills are exhibited in the current video clip.
The first skill displayed by the counselor is questioning. Questioning assists the client in exploring feelings or clarifying thoughts (Nelson-Jones, 2005). The counselor used open-ended questions with a paraphrase to encourage the client to share more. Midwinter and Dickson (2015) assert that the use of open-ended questions allows the client to identify and describe the problem in greater depth for better understanding. In the video clip, Natasha started off by asking the reason for visiting the service, the duration of her marriage, and if they have any children. Natasha followed up with more open-ended questions to better understand the problem. While these skills were effective in understanding the client’s situation and feelings, they offered less flexibility. The counselor should have used closed-ended questions as well to check the client’s understanding. Questions that require a yes or no response are helpful in steering a client’s conversation on track. The counselor used open-ended questions to learn more about the client and clarify understanding. She then reflected back and summarized the content of client communications (Payne, 2010).
Paraphrasing is also evident in the video clip. This technique reflects the counselor’s understanding of what the client stated. The client’s main points and ideas are being communicated back to the client in a shortened form (Armstrong, 2006). The counselor demonstrated several instances of paraphrasing during the session. The counselor used this skill to check the accuracy of the counselor’ and client’s understanding (Ertelt, Schulz, & Frey, 2022). The counselor used this technique to effectively clarify issues. “You are at a point where you feel the marriage has changed.” Relating the husband’s changed behavior to drinking, the counselor paraphrased, “the alcohol seems to be the problem.”
Working with the Relationship
Once the relationship is established, the counselor moves to explore the communicated issues in greater depth. Working with the relationship requires the helper to show empathic understanding of the client’s situation. Counseling skills such as self-disclosure, clarifying, probing, perception checking, and silence are used to achieve this goal (Midwinter & Dickson, 2015).
Reflection of feelings is an important tool used by nearly all counselors (Partin, 2009). The counselor used the reflected feeling technique to guide her client toward greater understanding (Nelson-Jones, 2014). The counselor achieved this by repeating a client’s statements, confirming the accuracy of understanding, and encouraging the client in the efforts being made (Henderson & Thompson, 2015). The counselor also reflected the feelings of the client. By allowing the client to listen to the feelings she had just expressed, the counselor helped the client better comprehend her emotional responses. “You said that drinking is the primary issue and that the changes in your husband’s behavior are related to alcohol. You feel disconnected and isolated from the marriage. I understand it must be difficult for you and the children. “The counselor also inquired whether the client could work out the marriage if the drinking problem was addressed. In so doing, the counselor seemed to acknowledge and respect the client’s needs.
The skill of empathy is important in counselor-client interactions. Empathy refers to the ability to perceive the client’s experiences and feelings and then to convey that perception back. It is the foundation of the helping relationship (Sommers-Flanagan, & Sommers-Flanagan, 2015). In the service, the counselor showed a real understanding of the client’s situation. She listened to the client’s basic message and gave regular but concise responses to those messages (Ergan, 2010). The skills of reflecting feelings and paraphrasing served the counselor when establishing empathic understanding. Ergan (2010) claimed that empathy helps get at hidden meanings and feelings. The counselor used verbal and nonverbal attention, reflecting the client’s feelings and paraphrasing the content of the client’s messages to express empathy. The counselor demonstrated empathy by reflecting back feelings about how the client and children are affected by the problem. Geldard and Geldard (2012) assert that “when we reflect feelings, we let the person know that we are empathizing with them and are in touch with the way they are feeling emotionally” (p.61). During the counseling session, Natasha applied reflected back feelings to empathize and accept the client’s situation. These reflections allowed the client to feel understood and accepted. Natasha also reflected back the feelings contained in Julie’s responses by paraphrasing and repeating the client’s statements. The counselor also used encouragers to get the client to continue talking. Encouraging involves attending to the client. The aim is to encourage a client to explore issues in greater depth (Corey & Corey, 2021). In the video clip, the counselor encourages the client to open up more by offering responses via verbal minimal response uh-huh.
The Skilled Helper
Egan’s Skilled Helper model is a 3-staged framework useful in assisting people solve problems. The aim is to help people to become better at helping themselves. The model helps a person to address 3 questions- What is going on (the story)?, what do I want instead (possibilities?, how might I get to what I want (Possible actions)? (Egan, 2022). The counselor encourages the client to tell her story and uses active listening, paraphrasing, questions and summaries to make sense of the story (Egan, 2022). Other skills that a counselor uses include brainstorming, focusing, selecting, and reality check. The counselor in the video clip demonstrated many of these skills to empower the client. , At the end of the session, the counselor carried the second summary with the goal of providing the client with a snapshot of the conversation. She suggested referral to relationship/marriage service for the client. The counselor used nonverbal and verbal cues, paraphrases, and reflections to demonstrate understanding.
Summary is another technique that the counselor put to good effect. Summaries refer to a short version of client communications from helping sessions. Summaries clarify and reflect back to a client the content of what they shared, check and clarify understanding, and identify problem areas (Nelson-Jones, 2005). Egan (2018) stated that giving a summary is a good way to check for accuracy. In the role play, the client said the changes in her husband’s behavior started when he started drinking most days. Another skill applied by the counselor is the perception check. Checking involves bringing something said early to the client’s attention. The aim is to allow the client to agree or disagree with the accuracy of the counselor’s paraphrasing. Natasha used perception checking to encourage the client to reflect on and express how she was feeling. This shows empathy and fosters positive regard.
Recommendations
The counselor clearly reflected the content of what the client communicated, focusing on the main points. She used reflections to encourage the client to keep talking (Cochran & Cochran, 2015). However, the counselor need to keep reflections concise. Reflections that are very long can overwhelm the client. The client should do most of the communications. In addition, the counselor exhibited excellent therapeutic listening skills, interrupting occasionally to summarize the main content of what is being communicated (Cochran & Cochran, 2015). But she can do better by remaining comfortable with silences as well as words. Silence offers the patient control of the content and goals.
The counselor should use focusing skill to decide what issues the patient wants to address. In the role play example, the client many issues such her husbanding’s drinking problem, quarrelling with husband for trivial matters, fighting, losing sleep, feeling exhausted, and feeling that marriage has changed. The change in husband’s behavior is related to the drinking problem. Thus drinking is the primary problem the client needs to address. Identifying the central issue can help the client and counselor to stay away from less important issues. Challenging is another core skill the counselor should use to encourage the client to move forward.
Conclusion
From the video clip, the counselor effectively used core counseling skills to connect and help the client. She built good rapport with the client by demonstrating active listening, empathy, appropriate questioning, and summaries. The client found the counseling environment to be safe and comfortable. To make the experience more enriching, the counselor should consider incorporating other basic skills such as facilitating focusing, silence, challenging, unconditional positive regard, and minimize the use of reflections. Overall, the counselor did exceptionally well to building positive relationship with the client, which help understand the client problem in depth and the kind of help she needed.
References
Armstrong, P. (2006).The Practice of Counselling, Thomson Higher Education, Melbourne
Capuzzi, D. & Gross, D. (2013). Introduction to the Counseling Profession. New York: Routledge.
Cochran, J. L., & Cochran, N. H. (2015). The heart of counseling: Counseling skills through therapeutic relationships. Routledge.
Corey, G., & Corey. M. S. (2021). Becoming a Helper (8th Ed.). Cengage
Egan, G. (2010).The Skilled Helper: A Problem-Management and Opportunity-Development Approach to Helping, (9th Ed). Brooks/Cole, Cengage Learning, Belmont, CA
Egan, G. (2013). The Skilled Helper: A Problem-Management and Opportunity-Development approach to helping. Brooks/Cole
Egan, G. (2018). The skilled helper: A client-centred approach (2nd EMEA ed. Ch. 7). Cengage Learning.
Ertelt, Bernd-Joachim. Schulz, William E. & Frey, Andreas. (2022). Counsellor competencies: Developing counselling skills for education, career and occupation. New York: Springer.
Geldard, D & Geldard K (2012). Basic Personal Counselling: A training manual for counsellors, 7th Ed. NSW:Pearson Education, Frenchs Forest,
Henderson, D. & Thompson, C. (2015). Counseling children (9th Ed.). Cengage Learning US.
Ivey A. E. Ivey M. B. & Zalaquett C. P. (2013). Intentional interviewing and counseling (8th ed.). Cengage Learning.
Midwinter, R. & Dickson, J. (2015). Embedding Counselling and Communication Skills. Routledge.
Moodley, Gielen, & Wu (2013). Handbook of Counseling and Psychotherapy in an International Context. Routledge: New York.
Nelson-Jones, R. (2005). Practical Counselling and Helping Skills: Texts and Activities for the Life skills Counselling Model, 5th Ed. London: Sage
Nelson-Jones, R. (2014). Practical counselling and helping skills (6th ed.). Sage.
Partin R. L. (2009). The classroom teacher’s survival guide: practical strategies management techniques and reproducibles for new and experienced teachers (3rd Ed). Jossey-Bass
Payne M. (2010). Couple counselling: a practical guide. SAGE.
Prout, H. T. & Brown, D. T. (2012). Counseling and psychotherapy with children and adolescents: theory and practice for school and clinical settings (4th th ed.). Wiley.
Sommers-Flanagan, J., & Sommers-Flanagan, R. (2015). Counseling and psychotherapy theories in context and practice: Skills, strategies, and techniques. Wiley.
