Outline the Primary Skills Used in Counselling Relationships

The theoretical orientation that best suites my personal style is a combination of both client-centered and brief therapy. In the first part of the paper, I try and describe the importance of developing a good client/therapist relationship using a client-centered approach. I like this approach the best because it helps the client to be more open and truthful with the therapist. There are several techniques that I find important in developing this bond such as: genuineness, unconditional positive regard, accurate empathy, and active listening. After building a relationship with the client, a therapist is now faced with identifying and solving a problem behavior. With this in mind, I found that the brief therapy method best fits my style.

In this essay I will be exploring the various issues raised when a therapist initially meets a new client, including ascertaining personal circumstances and applying ethical and safe practise. I will also be looking at the importance of communication and understanding between client and practitioner.

The final core condition is congruence or genuineness, this trait has to do with the person-to-person nature of the helping relationship and it is only through maintaining an absence of façade and sustaining a consistency between what I as a counselor say and present in non-verbal terms in response to the what the client verbalizes. Genuineness is key to the helping relationship as Roger’s says “It is only by providing the genuine reality which is in me, that the other person can successfully seek for the reality in him” . I agree with Roger’s core conditions as an aid to developing a safe environment and trust within the helping relationship that will encourage the client to delve deeper and truly work with their problems; without these characteristics the client may feel reluctant to truly expose themselves and may only work superficially with their difficulties preventing long term growth and healing.

Congruency (or genuineness): '. . .within the relationship (the therapist) is freely and deeply himself, with his actual experience accurately represented by his awareness of himself . . .' and ' . . .he is what he actually is, in this moment of time . . .

There are three important aspects to the therapist’s approach; congruence, unconditional positive regard and accurate empathic understanding. These are three core conditions that facilitate the actualization and growth. These conditions relate to the shared journey in which therapists and clients reveal their humanness and participate in a growth experience together.Its only

Throughout recent years, the emphasis placed on the importance of the therapeutic relationship in counselling, coaching and mentoring has dramatically increased. The therapeutic relationship between practitioner and client during the treatment is one of trust, due to a reciprocal understanding, where practitioners and clients must actively work together to make it succeed (Ackerman and Hilsenroth, 2003). The relationship between the practitioner and client is important because it is crucial to analysing the client and their objectives, without it, the client may not feel comfortable enough to discuss themselves in the detail required for the practitioner to understand their behaviour. If there is a poor relationship from the beginning, then many clients will prematurely terminate their sessions (Horvath and Luborsky, 1993). Therefore, it is no surprise that the quality of the therapeutic relationship is a consistent predictor of intervention success (McCabe and Priebe, 2004), correlating even more highly than specialised therapies (Lambert and Barley, 2001). Overall, without a strong therapeutic relationship, the client may fail to engage in treatment, as they will unwilling to work with someone they have no rapport with.

By offering warmth and unconditional positive regard, the therapist provides a partial antidote to the client’s previous experiences, in which most likely authority figures like his parents or teachers acted towards him as if he had no value as a person. Thus, within this nonthreatening context, the individual feels free to explore and share painful and abnormal feelings with his therapist, without worrying about being rejected or judged by him.

Carl Rogers introduced client-centred counselling; this approach is part of the humanistic movement. Client-centred counselling is a non-directive type of therapy, meaning that the counsellor does not set the goals, focus or direction of therapy. Rogers believed that with the three core conditions, empathy, congruence and unconditional positive regard, therapeutic change occurs allowing each individual to move towards a position of growth. As the counselling goes on, it can lead to the client’s increasing awareness of their conditions of worth allowing them to achieve self-actualisation. (Reeves, 2013).

The most important part of any therapy is the relationship that the counselor and the client is able to develop. Through the development of the client/counselor relationship we are able to support the client in working on the areas that need to be addressed while delivering a supportive and non-exploitive relationship (Frances, Miller, & Mack, 2011). However, while offering support to a client the client may begin to struggle with the accountability of their own emotions and behaviors; if the counselor is aware of possible implications, they will be better able to address the feelings and behaviors. The first issue that clinicians should be aware

The second school of counselling to be discussed is the Humanistic school. This school of counselling evolved in the USA during the 1950’s (McLeod, 2015) and includes a large number of related approaches such as the Person-Centered approach, Existential and Gestalt. Although different in ways, these approaches share a number of goals and core beliefs, key to the humanistic school. Approaches within the humanistic school share the acknowledgement of the counsellor-client relationship and client autonomy. Although the counsellor adopts a helping role, the sessions encourage the client’s self-determination and self-awareness. Exploration of problems in this school should demonstrate authenticity and the client should have an input on their goals and expectations of the treatment (Bugental, 1965).

Primarily developed by Carl Rodgers Person Centred Approach has allowed psychologists and counsellors to move away from the well-known patient- doctor approach and therefore create therapeutic environment propitious for finding personal potential of the clients. Over decades this approach has developed and become adapted by the number of professions where professional relationship between practitioners and service users are present (BAPCA,

When working with all clients there is a need as a counsellor to use techniques that incorporate, promote a therapeutic relationship. While these may be presented differently with each client the counsellors need to be using three main skills. These are using Unconditional positive regard, being genuine with clients always and while you may not have waked in a similar situation as your client, the use of empathy supports the therapeutic relationship (Duncan, 2010).

When planning this essay I assumed that I would just produce a narrative of the primary skills and how they can enhance any counselling relationship but after some thought I felt that for the sake of congruence, ‘a core condition’, along side that narrative I would relate it to my own learning experience.

The ‘principle of non-action’ (Carl Rogers 1961 p.8), as the Actualising theory suggests, shows that change happens anyway, given the right conditions to promote growth and understanding. The Person-Centred approach is all about the therapeutic relationship and its importance above all else. The emphasis is that it is the client who ‘knows what hurts, what direction to go.’ (Carl Rogers. Becoming a person p12). Meaning that the practitioner need only embody certain conditions, to promote growth and actualisation within their client. There is a focus on ‘meeting’ the client in their process and facilitating the Actualising Tendency (Carl Rogers. 1961), without appropriating the content to the counsellor. In order for this to be achievable Carl Rogers says the counsellor must embody what he calls the three ‘Core Conditions’. The first of these is Unconditional Positive Regard (‘UPR’); this is somewhat elusive as it depends on the attitude of the therapist and is somewhat immeasurable but if present has huge therapeutic qualities on its own. The