Themes, And Strengths?

This essay will be looking at the importance of relational depth and further more I will attempt to demonstrate my growing awareness of my relationship with my clients and how it has impacted on my client work.

Professional counsellors are also bound by other ethics such as being non-judgemental and should not exploit their clients in any way. They must be respectful of how their clients choose to live and their right to self-determination. Counsellors must not impose their own thoughts or feeling on other people & should not have any expectations or impose any conditions on their clients. The relationship between counsellor and client should be one of equality. Although, the client may not feel that there is equality, they may feel powerless, as they are seeking help. The counsellor must try and convey a sense of equality and use their skills and knowledge to enable the client to take control of their life and feel empowered.

This reflective essay will try and develop an understanding of the experiences and theory that has been applied to a counselling roleplay and applied content over the duration of the module. Furthermore, identifying what has been covered and what has not been covered in the roleplay, its strengths, weaknesses, what needs developing and how it can help as counsellors within the field. The first topic will reflect on the skills and attributes that have been applied to the roleplay and how it has been beneficial. The second topic will be a critical analysis on the roleplay conducted during counselling focusing on what techniques have not been covered, what skills and attributes were not demonstrated in the roleplay. Then identifying how improving and applying these skills and attributes may contribute to the overall effectiveness of counselling. The last topic will touch on micro-skills such as summarizing and goal setting, its application to the role play looking at both the strengths and weaknesses assessing why micro skills are important in the counselling practice.

In this assignment I intend to define ‘counselling skills and knowledge’ and then show how I actively employ these qualities during my everyday life. These include informal helping interactions with family and friends, in a supervisory capacity at work and during skills practice sessions as part of my counselling course. Finally I’ll analyse the effects that these helping interactions have on me personally and the various ways in which I deal with those effects.

Many people will, at some point in their lives, find themselves in the role of a counsellor without having a true understanding of the concept of counselling or what the role of the professional counsellor entails. There is a big difference between a professional counsellor and a person who uses some counselling skills as part of their role, for example their role as a friend or colleague. A professional counsellor is a highly trained individual who is able to use a different range of counselling approaches with their clients (Anon, 2001).

A counselling relationship is likened to being on a journey - a beginning, middle and end (Smallwood, 2013). During the beginning phase the client develops sufficient trust in the counsellor and the relationship ‘to explore the previously feared edges of his awareness’ (Mearns and Thorne, 1988, p.126).

us. Rogers puts forward the view that the client held in the therapeutic relationship, when given the

Every relationship, no matter the type is very complex. No matter how long two individuals have known each other, the relationship needs multiple things to survive and thrive. An effective helping relationship requires four necessary components: warmth, empathy, genuineness, and respect. During the course of this class I have learned of many skills which I must use to succeed in my chosen field and I have skills which I excel at and others which have room for improvement. To prepare for the upcoming exam I will tune in to all of the skills which I will utilize to pass the test. Through my preparations, I expect to learn more about my strengths and weakness and work on improving all of my skills to become a more effective counselor.

This essay is to illustrate my understanding of the skills of counselling. Evaluate and analyse the value of counselling skill used throughout the recording of the DVD. Furthermore, I will talk about my improvement that I have accomplished during completing this module and lastly I will demonstrate exactly how I can incorporate theories and approaches to support different skills used in the recording of the DVD.

The client must adopt new ways of behaving and create new habits– letting go of their need to control, adopting compromise and negotiation within their relationships and allowing freedom in choices and actions.In learning to talk about what they see, hear and feel they must first learn to clarify what their partner is saying or demonstrating and check their interpretation.This observation without blame or judgement will take practice and require trust. Strong, healthy and nurturing friendships are essential and the client may need to make efforts to establish and develop these outside their primary relationship.

During the session, Anthony was defensive regarding the suggestion that he was experiencing feelings of sadness. Counsellors must sometimes explore the client’s defensiveness while also respecting that the client is not willing to share some personal information. At the beginning of the session, the counsellor did not realize that telling the client where to sit was not a good idea since clients like Anthony, who lack control in his personal life, should be given as much control as possible, and that allowing him to choose where to sit would make him more comfortable and more open to opening up. Another thing that the counsellor failed to take into consideration is age appropriate activities for the session. For example, the counsellor thought that by playing Monopoly, it would help the Anthony to open up but

A reading can help the client realize lessons from their past and its influences on this moment and then the future possibilities.

This week’s role-play was not only challenging but also affected my emotional perspective and made me recognize the need of deeper level of self-care. As a safeguard for future mistakes, my dyad partner and I decided to role-play difficult clients in our dyad practice. This practice was an enormous help and brought my strengths and weaknesses into light at a different level. Further, last week professor’s supervision was immensely helpful. During this week’s practice, it was a reminder that my therapeutic relationship and empathetic counseling skills are good. Hence, I took the challenge to counsel a difficult client.

Counselling has one aim: to help the client. This is a simple aim however it is often difficult to put into effect, this was experienced first-hand in the practice therapy session. Counselling encourages individuals to develop a self-awareness and enables them to make changes in their lives (Cross, 2010). The use of micro-skills is essential in any counselling session as it ensures that the client feels heard and understood and the use of the skills impacts the strength of the therapeutic relationship (Geldard and Geldard, 2005; Lambert & Barley, 2001). The following will outline a summary of the session as well as the clients presenting problems and my aims when approaching this particular session. The video will then be analysed in relation to the micro-skills that were displayed or were attempted, the essay will then outline a case conceptualisation in regards to this particular client and the factors that may influence them to prematurely discontinue with the therapy sessions.

In the beginning of a session, my main concern as the counsellor was to build and establish a working relationship with my client (working alliance). As the counsellor I needed to develop the kind of relationship in which my client is encouraged to work. I tried to negotiate a contract with the client. I believe that in doing so, I should be able to clarify and define my client’s problem and assess whether or not counselling is likely to help specific needs and also whether or not I am will be able to work with the client to help her achieve what she want. In other words, as the counsellor my main aim was the intended outcome and what both my client and I want to achieve. (Sue Culley, Integrative counselling skills in action).