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During skills practice in class, we have predominately focussed on Person-centred theory within our sessions. I was able to set up a good verbal contract with my client covering time limitations and confidentiality, letting them know where we stood straight from the start. In the main part of the session I was able to use the core conditions of empathy, congruence and unconditional positive regard to establish a good rapport with the client and enabled a relationship based on trust to occur. Adding good SOLER on top of this it allowed the client to feel relaxed and able to open up in session. Having the general person-centred techniques memorized it allowed me to utilize them when and if needed in the session. For example, attempting to stick …show more content…
I have discovered I am rather uncomfortable with silence, that I often feel the need to fill gaps in conversations personally. This is obviously a problem as it could cut into a client's thinking time and prevent them coming to conclusions themselves. I also feel I struggle with keeping conversations going in a natural flowing way, that I often find myself unsure of what to ask next or to get the client to open up more. This is something I am working on by revisiting the base theories and looking up different techniques I can apply in sessions, such a gestalt theory, Johari windows and more mindfulness techniques. However, I feel I excelled in gaining the clients trust by adopting a slightly more casual demeanour, whilst ensuring the boundaries were still in place. Having the more relaxed tone made the client feel the relationship was more equal, allowing them to open up more easily. It is something I will need to monitor in the future given every client is different and whilst one may prefer a slightly more casual tone, another may prefer a more professional one and adapting my tone will be key for building a successful
This method is grounded in the strengths perspective, a perspective in which the worker center’s their sessions around the clients’ abilities, gifts, and strengths (Shulman, 2016). Instead of focusing on what is wrong with the client, the worker highlights what is right with the client building on their strengths instead of emphasizing their deficits: the client already has what they need to get better or solve their problem (Corcoran, 2008). The role of the worker in this model is to help the client recognize their potential, recognize what resources they already have, and discuss what is going well for the client and what they have been able to accomplish already (Shulman, 2016). Techniques commonly used in this model, although they are not exclusive to this model, include an emphasis on pre- and between-session change, exception questions, the miracle question, scaling questions, and coping questions (Shulman, 2016). These questions are used for many reasons: for example, the miracle question is used because “sometimes asking clients to envision a brighter future may help them be clearer on what they want or to see a path to problem-solving.” (Corcoran, 2008, p. 434) while coping questions are used to allow the client to see what they are already accomplishing, rather than what they are transgressing (Corcoran, 2008). All
The one skill that I used more of was empathy; I wanted the client to know that I understood her situation as well her feelings. At the end of our conversation, I summarized everything that we talked about, especially her want to open up to her parents and express herself to them. She mentioned that she wants them to fell empathy towards her, because the lack of parental empathy that she felt when she was younger, has even affected her in her adult life (Kilpatrick,2005).
I am the person who talks to the people in the grocery store line and leaves by having already given a verbal dissertation on my life or viewpoint. This is a downfall/habit I believe I learned from my family, I am the third generation of "20 Minute talks" I have an inability to stop talking or openly discussing with people. As I have learned to harness myself over the years, I see how it aids in my influencing people, because if someone hears something enough they will begin to believe in your vision or your observation. This also is my direct line to building trust, because it is not only spewing out words and explaining it is paired with listening and being attentive to what others are saying. I align everyday discussion with purposeful direct professional advices. Communication does help me with students when they are trying to explain something and lose words or cannot describe things, it helps them fill in blanks. In Physical Education it is key, I not only have to show visually the movements and actions but verbalize and communicate the sequences for students to use as guidelines for success. If my communication is not clear I had a bank of different word approaches to get through to students if it must be differentiated for them. For many years I have had administrators tell me I over-communicate, verbally, email, and memos. Which is a great thing
Opening the session and delivering the contract I did not provide my client with enough information about the British Association of Counselling and Psychotherapy (BACP, 2016), the role of supervision and the person-centred approach. In the next session I would deliver the contract in a way that would involve the client more in the process, for example I would ensure understanding and ask if she had any questions regarding any of the information. By creating a user centred contract and delivering it in more of a dialogue with my client this would potentially demonstrate to the client that the power is equal. person-centred counsellors believe that they are not authoritative, but they are equal to their client (Thorne, 1991).
Over the past year I have grown as both a person and a writer. My writing has improved
I walked in my third and final mock session with a level of comfortability that I knew what I was dealing with and prepared for the client. Feed back form my classmate during my last case presentation was perfect a gave me an air of confidence for my last session. However, it was a grounding experience when the client brought up a current crisis she was dealing with at the moment. The client mentioned that she was was pregnant and was not able to make a decision of weather to keep the baby or have an abortion. The client came in with a very real level of anxiety that created a tension throughout the session that really tested my ability to stay present and support the client during this sensitive time.
These chapters taught me how important it is to reflect back what the client has told you in order to make sure you are understanding everything properly. Using the skills taught in chapter six, I can ensure that I am giving the client the best use of their time, because instead of asking useless questions or just waiting for them to continue talking, I am able to direct the focus of the session to the main problems, with the help of the client.
I have a great comfort in engaging others and find it easy to communicate with people. When in a group or engaging with someone one-on-one, I do not find it uncomfortable to engage in a conversation or start one. The strengths I possess in my engagement skills are that I am an extrovert, compassionate, and communicate effectively. However, I do need to work on not always starting a conversation and allowing others to talk first. I also need to improve on my listening skills instead of always feeling that I need to make a contribution to the conversation. Even though I am able to communicate effectively, I sometimes need to remember that others deserve a chance to start an
I believe nearly all my skills require further development, but the skills I feel require the most attention and development is control of myself and how I listen to my client. My own values and assumptions I feel are hampering my development of skills. Ways I can improve on this is by doing my own research into different or opposing values and assumptions and finding their positives and finding the negatives within my own, to help find a more balanced practice. The way I listen could greatly improve as it took Lucy pointing out how she wanted and/or needed support from me, for me to make the session more productive. As I need to listen equally to answers of inaction and answers of action. And focus more on listening to Lucy and not problem solving, as I said during our session “you’re safety and [those] around you are safe … are the ultimate goal of our session’s”. (Harms, 2007; Ivey & Ivey, 2007; Trevithick, 2005). The analysing and planning of further development of my skills has given me hope within my current short-comings, and my future
Mearns, D. and Thorn, B. (2007) Person Centred Counselling in Action (3rd edition). London, Sage.
Another skill that needs improvement is my use of active listening. Every client and every situation is different, and even though we practiced our skills in a conference room with other students and I found it difficult to concentrate, there may be times as a social worker when I may be in a noisy atmosphere and I have to practice tuning out background noise in order to hear what my client is disclosing.
The counseling session began with the introductions where I introduced myself as the counselor and later introduced my client. This stage is important in any counseling session since it is the time of exploration and focusing according to Gerard Egan as quoted by Wright (1998) in his essay on couselling skills. It is in this session that I was able to establish rapport and trust with my client in order to come up with a working and fruitful relationship with him. During this stage I made use of skills like questioning, where I would pose a question directly to my client, sometimes I would choose to just listen to what the client wanted to speak out while in some instances I would be forced to paraphrase the question if I felt the client did not understand the question I had asked previously. There were also other times when I would reflect through silence. During such a period, I got time to study the client and the information he had given. This being a difficult area, since some clients may not be able to volunteer information to you as the counselor, I decided to assure the client of confidentiality of any information he was willing to share with me with a few exceptions which I also told him about. Being open to him about the only times the information may not be confidential was part of my building rapport and establishing trust with him. I therefore, decided to ask the client what information he wanted to share with me and lucky enough he was ready to speak to me about different issues that he was going through.
In reflection on my learning experience in the group class, I have gained clarity on what sorts of competencies of facilitating group therapy, as well as in what areas social workers and students tend to feel most strong in my practice. Regarding my specific gains in competencies, I feel that I learned the most and was most likely to gain specific group facilitating competencies at the weekly class. Learning in group class is taught me the tools to use to work with groups therapy, communities and also with individuals through the process of changes. In this past three months I think a lot of opportunities have been created to shadowing with (beside and behind) and being a part of group members to learn. In addition, this class has taught me about the skills and how effectively help
My perception of myself as being introverted and lacking confidence shows in my behaviour and mannerisms during communication with others. In my everyday life I show signs of nervousness while engaging in conversation or other types of communication. For example, I avoid confronting others because of uncertainty of the situation that may arise following confrontation. My nonverbal communication suffers in some areas because of my self-concept as well. In feedback I received during the lab activity “speed dating”, I need to work on making and maintaining eye contact and keeping open body language. According to Belcher, eye contact is especially important because it can either reinforce or diminish our verbal communication (2014). Another common comment was that I need to work on trying the “confrontation” skill. This is consistent with my own observations. Feedback from seminar activities states interpersonal communication skills I am good at include active listening (clarifying and repeating what someone has said), asking open ended questions, and making sure the “client” knows I comprehend them. In communication with others, I need to work on my nonverbal communication cues. However, I am able to engage in active listening, and convey a good understanding of what is being said to
My parents arrived in the United States hoping for a better future not for themselves, but for the baby they carried in their arms. We would often move from relatives ' houses since my parents couldn’t afford renting an apartment themselves. We were fortunate enough to have caring relatives who didn 't mind us living with them since they knew the hardships we were going through. I grew up in a household where only Spanish was spoken given that both my parents didn’t speak any English at all. When I was in kindergarten, my teacher was afraid that I would be behind the rest of my classmates, given that I only spoke Spanish fluently. I was fortunate to receive free tutoring from my kindergarten teacher. We would often read books together until