Introduction to Counseling

These flashcards cover essential concepts and vocabulary related to counseling as introduced in the lecture notes.

Counseling

A process in which a counselor assists a client in addressing and resolving personal, social, or psychological issues.

Therapeutic Working Alliance

An agreement between therapist and client on goals and tasks to achieve those goals, along with a positive emotional bond.

Assessment

The process of evaluating the client's presenting concerns and situation to facilitate goal setting in counseling.

Goal Setting

The stage in counseling where both the counselor and the client identify measurable and achievable objectives.

Transference

The phenomenon where a client projects feelings or attitudes towards the counselor that are reflective of past relationships.

Countertransference

The counselor's emotional entanglement with the client, where the counselor projects their own feelings onto the client.

Rapport

The relational bond between the counselor and client, characterized by respect, trust, and mutual understanding.

Interventions

Strategies and techniques used by counselors to facilitate change and promote growth in clients.

Termination

The process of concluding the counseling relationship, ideally with reflection on gains made and feelings of loss.

Cultural Context

The effect of a client's cultural background on their perceptions, actions, and reactions within the counseling process.

The Four Stages of Counseling

Stage 1: Assessing and Defining the presenting problem.

Stage 2: Goal Setting

Stage 3: Interventions

Stage 4: Evaluation and Termination

The Four Problem-Related Categories Underpinning Assessment 

Needs, stressors, life conditions, misinterpretations, dysfunctional social patterns.

The Working Alliance Components (Borden’s Model)

Goals, tasks (interventions), and positive emotional bond.

Three Core Skills of Goal Setting

1. Translate goals into measurable outcomes that allow progress tracking.

2. Differentiating among ultimate goals, intermediate goals, and immediate goals.

3. Teaching clients to think realistically about intermediate, and immediate goals.

Four Major Theoretical Categories of Interventions

Effective interventions, cognitive interventions, behavioral change interventions, systematic change interventions.

Four Skills of Initiating Intervention

1. Competence in using a specific intervention.

2. Knowledge of appropriate uses of specific interventions.

3. Knowledge of typical client responses to that intervention.

4. Observational skills to monitor client response to the intervention. 

What are counseling interventions based on?

Based on goals and the assessment Outcome

Practical Assessment Steps

1. Start with broad gathering and watch for patterns, then refine as the client is known better.

2. Use a specific blueprint to avoid becoming overwhelmed or missing important data.

Skills to Approach Clinical Assessment 

Observation, inquiry, making associations, recording information, and forming a hypothesis. 

Skills to Approach Clinical Assessment (Observation)

Note clients general state of distress, and behaviors suggesting dysfunction. Pay attention to how the client frames problems, as these details reveal patterns.

Skills to Approach Clinical Assessment (Inquiry)

Open-ended questions explore processes; closed questions obtain specifics.

Skills to Approach Clinical Assessment (Recording and Organization)

Information must be recorded as data

Skills to Approach Clinical Assessment (Hypothesis)

Synthesize data into a context (theory), then form a hypothesis that guides goal setting. Contextualize data culturally. 

How to Initiate a Positive Working Relationship in Assessment

Develop self-congruent style of assessment, use social skills, practice attending and active listening, acknowledge that the relationship is built gradually across sessions, and be mindful of cultural similarities and differences.