Intro to Counseling - First exam

Guidance

process of helping people make important choices or decisions that affect their lives

• Choosing a lifestyle

• Choosing a career

What is the difference between guidance and counseling?

• ADVICE

• Professional counselors are prohibited from giving advice

• Promotes client independency

• Guidance centers on helping individuals chose what they value most, whereas counseling helps them make changes in their lives.

In guidance

 the relationship is between unequal individuals (e.g., adult/child or more experienced person/less experienced person.)

Counseling is not about

solving people issue, counseling is about creating problem solvers

Psychotherapy

• focuses on serious problems associated with internal and personal conflicts

Psychotherapy has emphasized

• The past more than the present

• Insight more than changes

• The therapist’s role as an expert

Psychotherapy involves a long-term relationship

(20 to 40 sessions over a period of 6 months to 2 years).

Psychotherapy has also been associated

with impatient settings (mental hospitals).

Counseling

• Professional relationship that empowers diverse individuals, families, and groups to accomplish mental health, wellness, education, and career goals

  • Boundaries

  • Ethical codes

what are some of the things that characterize counseling?

• Counseling deals with wellness, personal growth, and career

• Counseling is conducted with individuals, in groups, and in families

• Counseling is diverse and multicultural

• Counseling is a dynamic process

• Counseling takes in consideration the impact of culture on clients problems

History of Counseling

1900-1909

Frank Parsons

• Often called the founder of guidance

• He worked in various disciplines (e.g., being a lawyer, an engineer, a college teacher, and a social worker.)

• He is the best known for founding Boston’s Vocational Bureau in 1908.

• At the bureau, Parsons worked with young people who were in the process of making career decisions.

Choosing a vocation depends on

• A knowledge of work

• A knowledge of self

  • Values, Interests, skills

• And a matching of the two through reasoning

Jessie B. Davis

• began advising about vocational choice about the same time as Parsons established the Vocational Bureau in Boston (1908)

• His plan included study of self, study of occupations and study of self in relation to occupations in 7-12 grades

• He was the first to establish a systematic guidance program in public schools to teach students how to deal with life events

• Made a curriculum

The effectiveness of counselors depends on three major factors.

• Empathy

• Empathy does not equal sympathy

• Good listening skills

• Give feedback

ADDED

• The personality and background of a counselor

• The formal education of the counselor

• The ability of the counselor to engage in professional counseling-related activities

The Personality and Background of the Counselor

• Motivators for becoming a counselor

• Personal qualities of counselors

Motivators for becoming a counselor

• Individuals aspire to become counselors for many reasons

• Some motivators are healthier than others

• It is very important that individuals who wish to become counselors examine themselves before committing their lives to this noble profession

Negative Motivators for Becoming A Counselor

• Emotional Distress (Unresolved personal issues and trauma)

• Vicarious Coping (Living life through others rather than having meaningful lives of their own)

• Loneliness and Isolation (seek friends or companionship through counseling experiences)

• Desire for power (seek to control others

• Need for love, attention, admiration, etc…

• Vicarious Rebellion (unresolved anger acted out through client)

• Counselors-in-training and professional counselors should always assess themselves regarding who they are and what they are doing

Personal Qualities of an Effective Counselor

• Self-awareness: Effective counselors have an identity (a knowledge of self, including attitudes, values, and feelings

• Flexibility: Effective counselors are open to change

• Authenticity, empathy, and understanding: Effective counselors are genuine, and they have the ability to put themselves in their clients’ place.

• Understand client without judgement

• Curiosity and inquisitiveness: A natural interest in people (sincere interest in the welfare of others).

• Ability to listen: The ability to find listening stimulating.

• Culturally attuned: Appreciate the influence of culture and welcome diversity

• Emotional insightfulness: Comfort dealing with a wide range of feelings, from anger to joy

• Introspection: The ability to see and feel from within

• Tolerance of intimacy: The ability to sustain emotional closeness

• Live in the present: Not riveted to the past, nor are they fixed on the future

The Education of Professional Counselors

• Master Degree in Counseling (clinical mental health, rehabilitation, or school counseling),

• Master program, minimum 60 credit hours

• CACREP accreditation

• 100 clock hours of a supervised practicum and 600 clock hours of a supervised internship

Engaging in Professional Counseling-Related Activities

• Continuing Education

• Advocacy and Social Justice

The Four Main attribution Models of Counselors

Medical, Moral, Compensatory, Enlightenment

Medical

• Counselors act as experts and clients not held responsible for their problems

• Downside: clients may become dependent on counselors

Moral

• Counselors act as coaches/motivators and clients held responsible for causing/solving their problems

• Attributions: Related to cause of the issue???

Compensatory

Counselors are viewed as teachers and clients are viewed as partners, hence, clients are responsible for solving but not causing their problems

Enlightenment

Counselors are viewed as authority figures and clients are responsible for causing their problems but not solving them

Counseling is a process that includes three main stages:

• Building a relationship

• Working in the relationship

• Terminating the relationship

The First Stage of Counseling

• involves building a relationship and focuses on engaging clients to explore issues that directly affect them

  • Major emphasis, not only building trust, not only explaining code of ethics, but helping clients become more motivated

A number of factors affect the counseling process either positively or negatively

• Seriousness of the concern presented

• The structure

• Initiative

• Physical setting

• Clients’ qualities or characteristics

• Counselors’ qualities or characteristics 

Research findings indicated the counseling is

impacted by the seriousness of clients presenting problem

Clients reporting higher initial distress take more sessions to reach clinically significant improvements than

clients reporting lower levels of distress

Research findings also highlighted

that the largest gains in improvement occur early in treatment

• Client gains more benefits during the earlier sessions

It is reported that 50% of clients diagnosed with anxiety or depression had improved

• by sessions 8-13 and 85% clients improved after 1 year of weekly treatment

Counseling structure

an agreement between the counselor and client regarding the characteristics, conditions, procedures, and parameters of counseling

Structure

• helps to clarify the relationship between the counselor and the client

• helps to protect the right of client (confidentiality)

• A very important way to establish structure in counseling is to provide client with a professional disclosure statement.

Professional Disclosure Statement

• Welcoming the client

• Professional background of the counselor (degrees, training, and certificates)

• The services that the counselor offer (individual counseling, career counseling, marriage and family counseling)

• Counseling ethics (confidentiality, the circumstances under which confidentiality can be violated)

• Length of sessions

• Fees and methods of payment

• Complaint procedure

• Signature of both the counselor and client

Initiative can be

thought of as the engine or motivation to change

A reluctant client

• is a person in counseling who is unwilling, unready, or opposed to change 

• Reluctant clients terminate counseling prematurely and report dissatisfaction with the process

  • They have unrealistic expectations about the process of change

Four main ways to help a reluctant client

• Be prepared and anticipate the anger, frustration, and defensiveness that some clients display

• Show your client acceptance, patience, and understanding as well (have a non-judgemental attitude).

• Confrontation, simply point out to the clients exactly what the client is doing.

• Use persuasion, how can we do that???

Foot in the Door

• The counselor asks the client to comply with a minor request and then later follows with a larger request

• Example:

  • An initial request might be: “Would you keep a journal of your thoughts and feelings for this week

  • Followed the next week by “I would like you to keep a journal of your thoughts and feelings from now on.

Door in the Face

• Ask the client to do a seemingly impossible thing to ask and then follows by requesting the client to do more reasonable task.

• Example:

  • The initial request might be “I would like you to talk briefly to 100 people a day between now and our next session

  • Followed after the client refusal by “Since that assignment seems to be more than you are comfortable in handling. I would like you to say hello to just three new people each day.”

The Physical Setting

• Certain features of a counseling office will improve its general appearance and facilitate the counseling process

Physical Setting features include

• Soft lightning

• Quiet colors

• Comfortable furniture

• Diverse cultural artifacts

• Also, when working with children it is very important to have furniture that is accommodating to the child’s size.

• Distance between counselor and client

Clients’ Qualities or Characteristics

A number of stereotypes have been built around the attractiveness of individuals, and these stereotypes generalize to clients

Clients who were seen by the counselors as more attractive are those

• who talked more and were more spontaneous when compared with other clients

• The nonverbal behaviors of clients are also very important

Counselors need to consider clients’

• body gesture, eye contact, facial expression, and vocal quality to be as important as verbal communication

• For an example: clients who report that everything is going well but who look down at the ground and frown while doing so is probably indicating just the opposite

Counselors’ Qualities or Characteristics

Expertness and trustworthiness are some of the most influential qualities of counselors

Expertness

• the degree to which a counselor is perceived as knowledgeable and informed about his or specialty

• Counselors who display certificates and diplomas are usually perceived as more credible than those who do not

Trustworthiness

• related to the sincerity and consistency of the counselor

• The counselor is genuinely concerned about the client and shows it over time by establishing a close relationship

Types of Initial Interviews

Information and Relationship

Information - oriented first interview

• The purpose of this type of initial interview is to gather information about clients

• Counselors use specific types of skills including probes (open ended questions), request for clarification, accent, and closed questions

  • Accent means repeating back the last few words of a client's words

  • Invite them to elaborate more

Relationship - oriented first interview

• The purpose of this type of initial interview is to learn more about clients’ attitudes and emotions

• Counselors use a different set of skills in this type initial interviews including restatement, reflection of feeling, and summary of feelings

Conducting the Initial Interview

• Regardless of the purpose of the initial interview, counselors are still required to focus on building rapport with clients

There are 2 essential micro skills used by counselor for building rapport with clients

Attending Behavior and Client-observing skills

Attending behavior

• Visual/eye contact, vocal qualities, verbal tracking, and body language

  • 3V+1B

Important Skills while Working in a Counseling Relationship

• Leading

• Self-disclosure

• Hope

• Humor

• Confrontation

Leading

• certain deliberate behaviors counselors engage in for the benefit of their clients

• Many researchers used the analogy of a football quarterback and receiver to describe leading behaviors in counseling

• A good quarterback anticipates where the receiver will be on the field and throws the ball in that direction

• Leading does not happen haphazardly 

Self-Disclosure

Making oneself known to another person by revealing personal information

Client self-disclosure is necessary for

successful counseling to occur. Yet, it is not always necessary for counselors to be self-disclosing

Certain clients may perceive self-disclosure as

risky and become hesitant to share

Hesitant clients may

• Refuse to discuss issues

• Change the subject frequently, and

• Become silent most of the time

When counselors decide to disclose information about themselves, they need to ensure their self-disclosure meet three major conditions

• Should be brief and focused

• Should not add to the clients problems, and

• Should not be used frequently

Hope

feeling that something desirable, such as the achievement of goal, is possible

Hope has several benefits

• Increasing client’s motivation to work in the counseling relationship

• Enhancing academic success, psychological adjustment, and athletic performance

Humor

• Humor in counseling needs to be used in order to build bridges between the counselor and client

• Humor can overcome clients’ resistance and tension

• Humor may enhance client’s self-efficacy

• Humor also can contribute to creative thinking; promote attachment, help keep things in perspective

Confrontation

defined as challenging the client to examine, modify, or control an aspect of behavior, attitudes, or thoughts

There are certain boundaries to confrontation

The strength of the counseling rapport and The time used

The strength of the counseling rapport

The counselor needs to make sure that the relationship with the client is strong enough to sustain a confrontation

The time used

The counselor must time a confrontation appropriately and remain true to the motives that had led to the act of confrontation

Transference

client’s projection of feelings, attitudes, or desires about someone they know onto the counselor

• Can be negative (-) or positive (+)

• Example: guilt, anger, defensive, reactive, desire to please, physical attraction, social interest

• Can be solved only if counselors and clients address them in the session

Countertransference

is the projection by the counselor of past or present attitudes, expectation, or desires onto the client

• Example Counselor tries to protect the client, desires to please clients, loses objectivity, has physical attraction or social interest, gives advice, is controlling

• May need to seek supervision or seek counseling for themselves

Terminating a relationship, two types

• Terminating Single Sessions

• Terminating Counseling

Terminating Individual Sessions

• Initial sessions should have clearly defined time limit and both client and counselor should know when a session will end

• No new material should introduced at the end of each session

• Counselor indicates that session time is up or near the end (verbal and/or nonverbal indicators)

• Counselor summarizes content (and “homework”) at the end.

Terminating the Counseling Relationship

• The subject should be discussed early in the relationship

• Counselors and clients must agree on when termination is appropriate and helpful

  • Clients may give counselors messages (verbal and nonverbal) (more relaxed, more optimistic, less anger, grief, withdrawal, etc.)

  • Counselors may give clients subtle messages

What does a counselor consider when ending the counseling relationship

• Has the presenting problem been eliminated or reduced?

• Is the client still feeling the same level of stress that brought him/her into counseling?

• Have client’s coping abilities improved?

• Has client’s understanding of self and others improved

• Has the client's ability to relate better to others improved?

• Can client function effectively - plan, work, … (home and family, work…

Client resistance

• Client asks for more time at end of session

• Client asks for more appointments after goals reached

• Introducing new problems