Counselling Skills Analysis

A counsellor requires many developed skills in order to provide the highest quality practice for their clients. As a beginner in counselling, I am beginning to develop these skills and put them to practice efficiently. This report reviews my own strengths and weaknesses of the development of these counselling skills; providing an analysation of these strengths and weaknesses with examples of how I have improved these skills and areas of improvement with next steps. Also, a small assessment of how each of the counselling skills affects my personal self-development.

Use of Silence

Using appropriate silences during a counselling session can be effective as it allows time for both the counsellor and the client to come to terms with the situation

Developing the use of silence has encouraged a better thought process, taking use of these silences to collect my thoughts has become more beneficial in making rational decisions. By making rational decisions, I am developing my self-esteem as the rational decisions I am making are beneficial to how I feel about myself and the people around me. Instead acting on impulse, rational decision making is also developing my self-control, increasing my self-awareness and the awareness of those around

I had no knowledge of the relation between action planning and its use in counselling. As my knowledge of counselling skills has developed and improved, I have come to learn and understand the effectiveness of mutual goal setting and what it can offer the client. I am beginning to assist the client in setting goals which can be reviewed in future sessions. An example of how my use of mutual goal setting has improved and developed as a counselling skill is a recent filming in which I ended the session by discussing the idea of creating an action plan containing small goals in which could benefit the client’s emotional well-being. The client agreed that this would be a good strategy in order for them to improve their well-being so I suggested a small goal in which the client should be able to achieve from the present session to the next future session. The client agreed that the goal would be achievable and that they would like to work towards achieving it. To improve, one the client is comfortable with goal setting, I should encourage the client to set the goal, with small encouragement from myself, in order for them to develop and become more self-sufficient. It would be more beneficial for the client’s self-development for the individual to set their own goals rather than relying on another