Gerard Egan’s Counselling Guide

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Introduction Gerard Egan’s counselling guide is a three-stage model designed for counsellors or “helpers”. With this model these helpers are able to structure their work with persons in order to help them to help themselves. This is built around three questions: What is going on? What do I want instead? How can I get to where I want to go? The questions enable the person to begin with making plans for their life and to form priorities with realistic approaches to their problems. They are then able to gain a deeper insight into their own situation and problem. The counsellor will understand that these questions will have the effect of challenging the person into self analysis and action. Egan’s model is widely used in the counselling profession and gives a loose framework to the “helper” that emphasises the importance of their use of their own intuition, training and experience in making professional judgements . Egan knew that his structured framework of three questions to the person should be at the heart of the counselling sessions and key to the counselling approach; this way, the goals that are set in the counselling session will be formed by the person themselves, with the counsellor or “helper” assisting rather than leading . In the context of Pastoral Care, this assignment will focus on some of the values of Egan’s model with consideration given to some of its limitations in that arena. Values of Egan’s model Dividing counselling sessions into stages is common a practice among helpers . Egan’s model is a particularly positive one, and focuses on giving the power to the person with whom the counsellor is working. Often, the use of incremental stages is an analytical tool used by a counsellor. In Egan’s three stag... ... middle of paper ... ...ead given to them by the person, thus ensuring that their approach remains person-centred and empowering. Works Cited Axline, V. (1990) Dibs: In Search Of Self. London: Penguin. Culley, S. and Bond, T. (2004) Integrative Counselling Skills in Action (2nd edition). London: Sage. Egan, G. (2002) The Skilled Helper – a problem management and opportunity-development approach to helping (7th edition), California: Brooks/Cole. Gerkin, C. (1997) An Introduction to Pastoral Care. Nashville: Abingdon Press. Lyall, D. (1995) Counselling in the Pastoral and Spiritual Context. Buckingham, OUP. Lyall, D. (2001) Integrity of Pastoral Care. London, SPCK. Lynch, G. (ed) (1999) Clinical Counselling in Pastoral Settings. London, Routledge. Mearns, D. and Thorn, B. (2007) Person Centred Counselling in Action (3rd edition). London, Sage.

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