This essay evaluates the counselling skills used during a 30 minute integrative counselling session with a male client aiming to combine strengths of person-centred theory, attachment theory and cognitive-behavioural therapy. It starts by offering a case formulation based on Padesky and Greenberger (1995), as well as Lazarus’ (1973) multimodal assessment template the BASIC ID (cited in Prochaska and Norcross, 2003, p.496), of a married young male client called Eric, who is suffering from anxiety and marital relationship problems triggered by unemployment and influenced by existing difficulties within the client's relationship to his mother.
The essay then outlines and critically evaluates counselling skills such as body language, silences and reflective communication skills amongst others used during Eric’s third session while highlighting areas of improvement and identifying alternative options. The essay concludes with offering and exploring possible directions for future counselling sessions.
Case formulation
Drawing on Padesky and Greenberger (1995, p.27-28), accurate diagnosis and case conceptualisation, here referred to as case formulation, are indispensable for outlining a successful treatment plan and establishing continuous treatment progress. The aim of case formulation is to outline the client’s problems in a coherent and logical manner, while providing shared guidelines for therapy, which can be as individualised as necessary depending on the client’s unique requirements (Westbrook, Kennerley and Kirk, 2011, p.63-97). Even though not all factors were addressed during this session, the case formulation used for this counselling session consists of cognitive, behavioural, emotional, environmental, socio-cultural, phys...
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Nelson-Jones, R. (2008) Basic Counselling Skills – A Helper’s Manual, 2nd edition, London: Sage Publications.
Padesky, C and Greenberger, D. (1995) Clinician’s Guide to Mind Over Mood, London: Guildford Press.
Palmer, S. and Laungani, P. (1998) Counselling in a Multicultural Society,London: Sage Publications.
Prochaska, J.O. and Norcross, J.C (2003) Systems of Psychotherapy: a transtheoretical analysis, 5th edition, Pacific Grove, California: Brooks/ Cole.
Rogers, C. (1957) The necessary and sufficient conditions of therapeutic personality change, Journal of Consulting Psychology, Volume 21, Pages 95-103.
Sutton, J. and Stewart, W. (2008) Learning to Counsel, 3rd edition, Oxford: How to Books Ltd.
Westbrook, D., Kennerley, H. and Kirk, J. (2011) An Introduction to Cognitive Behaviour Therapy – Skills and Application, 2nd edition, London: Sage Publications.
Burton, A. (1959). Case studies in counseling and psychotherapy (Prentice-Hall psychology series). Englewood Cliffs, N.J: Prentice-Hall.
First, the therapist attempts to investigate the behaviours that the client presented on the first time that she experiences the problem. Second, the therapist tries to understand the way the client is managing her symptoms and problems (Dobson and Dobson, 2009) by identifying the safety behaviours that the client is adopting to reduce the level of anxiety (Papworth, Marrinan, and Martin, 2013). On the video session, the therapist showed concern about the behaviours that the client was engaging on (Marshall and Turnbull, 1996), however, she should have asked her more about specific behaviours that the client was probably engaging on, based on the information that the client provided (Kinsella and Garland, 2008). The therapist tries to detect behaviours such as avoiding specific situations, like for example leaving the house alone (Papworth, Marrinan, and Martin, 2013), yet she did not explore this enough. The therapist should have also inquired the client about reassurance seeking and safety seeking behaviours, as the client stated that she calls her husband when she is feeling anxious. The therapist should have discussed this in more detail, specifically emphasising the conection between these behaviours and the vicious circle (Kinsella and Garland,
There are multiple structures of that can be applied to the counselling process, ranging from the basic idea of a beginning, middle and end to a more structured approach as that proposed by Egan (1994). Although his initial structure offered three main components; Stage 1, exploring the situation, stage 2, identifying a new or desired scenario to strive for and stage 3, the action stage, in which methods of coping are devised of and implemented. Egan later devised a ten stage structure that still takes into account initial stages from the speakers perspective of identifying a problem and seeking help, within this structure stage 4 is the initial meeting of the counsellor and client and can be considered the beginning stage of the helping re...
Counseling skills has provided me with a valuable insight into the helping relationship and how it is both created and maintained in order to encourage growth and development in the client. The factors involved within the helping relationship include considering Roger’s core conditions, congruence, unconditional positive regard and empathy as the three main characteristics necessary in a helping relationship. In order to fully incorporate all three of Roger’s core conditions, I as the counselor must be self-aware, as a lack of self-awareness may inhibit truly listening and understanding the client; self-awareness can be enhanced through exercises such as Johari’s window. Counseling skills such as body language and active listening also plays a role within encouraging the client to open up and can help me as the counselor convey empathy.
The counselor accomplishes the above by expressing empathy, developing discrepancies, going along with resistance and supporting self-efficacy. Moreover, the counselor guides the client toward a solution that will lead to permanent posi...
Understanding the counseling session from the client’s perspective is a very important aspect in the development of a therapeutic relationship. A clinician must be an excellent listener, while being to pay attention to the client’s body language, affect and tone. The dynamics in the counseling session that is beneficial to the client include the recognition of the pain that the client is feeling. The detrimental part of this includes a misunderstanding of the real issues, a lack of consideration of the cultural aspects of the client, and a lack of clinical experience or listening skills. In this presentation, we will discuss the positive and negative aspects of the counseling session from the client’s perspective which includes the client’s attitudes, feelings, and emotions of the counseling session. We will next examine the propensity of the client to reveal or not reveal information to the counselor, and how transference, and counter-transference can have an effect on the counselor-client relationship.
van den Broek, W. (2009, March 10). Off To The MoodGym [Blog]. Available April 10, 2011, from http://www.findingoptimism.com/blog/index.php?s=MoodGym
Nelson, P. (2007) an Easy Introduction to Egan’s skilled Helper Solution Focussed Counselling Approach. Available at: http://mystrongfamily.co.uk/downloads/PDFs/SFP-EasyIntroToEgan.pdf [Accessed 13th February 2014]
1) Corey, Gerald Theory and Practice of Counseling and Psychotherapy, 6th edition, Brooks and Cole, Stamford, CT p. 153.
This essay will attempt to highlight and evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of the three main theories of counselling within the module covered this term. The three approaches in discussion are psychodynamics, cognitive behavioural and humanistic.
Corey, G. (2013). Theory and practice of counseling and psychotherapy (9th Edition). Belmont, CA: Brooks/Cole Publishing.
In this part of the assignment, I will be reviewing the strengths and weaknesses that were shown when I was using counselling skills on my client. I believe that there were more strengths when I was showing counselling skills compared to the weaknesses that there were.
Corey, G. (2011). Theory and practice of counseling and psychotherapy. (ninth ed., pp. 291-301). Belmont, CA: Brooks/Cole.
Counselling is collaboration of steps that is aimed to help clients cope better and learn to deal with situations that they are facing. This includes teaching the client to focus on their thoughts and emotions, and to teach them to make positive choices and changes. It is a method for helping individuals to lessen primary anguish ensuing from a challenging situation and guaranteeing long-term constructive handling of stressful situations.