Egan & Schroeder (2009) discusses three dimensions of responding skills that therapist should consider while helping clients. The three dimensions of responding skills are listed as perceptive, knowhow and assertiveness. Perceptiveness involves having an accurate idea of what the client is experiencing. Know-how involves proper delivery of information. Assertiveness allows the therapist to bring the perceptions and know-how into the therapeutic dialogue and not ignore or skip over certain issues. Understanding these dimensions of responding can help the therapist response accurately to the client, and this has shown to help the overall therapeutic experience. The authors offer guidelines in responding to clients' feelings, emotions, and moods. …show more content…
In my personal life, I respond to clients who are in distress or feeling suicidal via hotline.. In this position, I have a difficult time responding to clients in certain circumstance and tend to sound fake or cliché when I get nervous. After reading Egan & Schroeder (2009) literature on how to respond, I felt as though my cognitive abilities developed and I felt more prepared and confident in my responses. This reading has taught me that I do not need to have a perfect response but instead a thought out and genuine response. Egan & Schroeder (2009) outline specific techniques for improving the quality of your responses as a therapist. The techniques that they recommend include: giving yourself time to respond, and giving short, precise responses. These response techniques have demonstrated to be effective throughout the therapy process and tend to elicit positive responses from clients. While appropriately replying to clients is significant, Egan & Schroeder (2009) also outline specific responses to avoid while providing therapy. They first suggest that therapist avoid bad responses. Bad responses are described as no response, cliché responses or distracting questions. They argue that these responses do not advance the conversation but rather impede the therapy process, so they suggest that therapist avoid them all …show more content…
This reading has inclined me to more closely consider the things I am speaking to prevent cliché type responses. As I mentioned early, I difficulty that I have is responding to clients in a way that does not sound fake. This reading has helped me overcome this difficulty by showing me how to more effectively consider my responses to ensure they are applicable. Egan & Schroeder (2009) describe this as empathic highlights, which is how to put empathic feelings into words so the client gets it. Understanding empathic highlights has helped me feel more confident in my ability to respond and use
Using the paraphrasing technique the client did correct me. Being corrected alerted me that I got lost somewhere in the client story. Also, in our previous session the client was given some homework. The homework consisted of her and her husband driving around and writing down the churches they wanted to visit. During our session, I was ecstatic to hear that she and her husband will be discussing which church they would like to visit based on the homework that was
These techniques include showing concern for clients through active listening and empathy, showing respect for and confidence in clients, focusing on client’s strong points and positive traits, resources, replacing discouraging thoughts with encouraging ones, and helping clients to develop a sense of humor about life. (Watts & Pietrzak,2000,p 443) Another method, as mentioned earlier is building a strong rapport with the client. Therapists use a variety of techniques to facilitate change in the client’s behavior. Therapists help clients to choose alternative behaviors to the behaviors that are maladaptive. The next method is getting the client to change how he or she views a situation. This is done inside and outside of counseling. Through this technique a client comes to realize their abilities and strengths. Last but not least, therapists help clients draw on their resources and strengths when faced with a situation that seems troublesome. (Watts & Pietrzak,2000,p
Although, this session ended with amazing results, I feel as though I need more practice with this type of therapy. I have to continue to practice on allowing the patient to come up with their own solutions. I found it hard not giving advice to my client, because I already knew the situation. However, in the end I found myself very proud, because even though this was not a real therapy session, but the client was able to find a real solution to her problem. This experience is one that teaches the therapist restraint, it allows one to step back and listen. It also gives the client the opportunity to reach a solution themselves without someone giving them the answer to their
The counselling process is one that may last for as little as one session or for years, it is within the middles stages of the helping relationship that particular counselling skills such as a focusing, challenging and immediacy can be implemented, as well as use of advanced empathy that can be applied due to increased familiarity with a speaker. Many actions may occur within middles stage of the helping relationship such as transitions that occur for a multitude of reasons and the outcome of which can vary based on the attitude of the speaker. Self-awareness remains vital throughout the entire counselling relationship due to the continual influence of empathy in the helping relationship and remaining aware my own motives and values when using advanced empathy and specific counselling skills. Ethics and boundaries are also involved within the counselling process as within a counselling relationship, I as the counsellor, must be careful with the balance or expenditure of power when challenging.
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...
These different tools are useful in building and maintaining a therapeutic relationship. Paraphrasing includes repeating the content that has been expressed in a different way, this method can provide the client with a feeling of importance and recognition. Reflection of feelings/content involves identifying the feelings and/or content in what has been said (highlighting the key aspects of the story). Again, this method encourages the patients to be validated and heard. The relationship between the person seeking help and the nurse/counsellor should be appropriate for producing therapeutic change, to ensure that the patient maximizes the therapeutic relationship.
Effective crisis intervention must follow ethical principles which ensure that client is not placed in further harm also that the decisions and opinions of the client are respected throughout the process and the intervention upholds a rights-based approach. This involves good listening communication skills, observing, understanding, genuineness, respect, acceptance, non-judgment and sensitivity demonstrating empathy, among other support provided by counselor. A number of specific strategies can be used to promote effective listening during crisis intervention. These include using open-ended questions - “what” or “how” questions. They are used to encourage sharing of information from a client about their feelings, thoughts and behaviors, and are particularly useful when exploring problems during a crisis.
In the preparation phase, the therapist starts to teach the client some self-care techniques that could guide the client to control his/her emotions (Bartson, 2011). Self-care techniques are also very helpful in guiding the clients’ emotions during and between sessions (Bartson, 2011). In this stage of the therapy, the therapist is able to thoroughly explain the therapy to the patient in the aspect of the process, expectations during and after therapy (Bartson, 2011). Trust is usually developed in this phase of the therapy between the therapist and the client (Bartson,
Being a therapist is not only sitting in a chair listening to your clients’ problems all day. It is also not “reading-minds” as many people think and it is not giving advice or solving each clients’ issue. Therapists have many qualities that define the effectiveness of their treatment and their competence in the field. The important qualities that a therapist should have are empathic and great listening skills. In addition to, the therapist must be knowledge in their skills and in the different mental disorders in order to prevent a misdiagnosis. Furthermore, the therapist should have other qualities such as interpersonal skills and the ability to build rapport with the clients so they can feel secure and continue to come to therapy.
To explain, the client should not be inferior to the counselor; the environment should be two people discussing an issue and ways to make a difference. A therapist should occasionally share similar experiences; therefore, sessions should make clients feel comfortable. To add, the client should feel safe due to the positive atmosphere the therapist brings to the session. The goal is to finally give the client a chance to be heard, regularly people are muted and feel like they are insignificant to society. Similarly, to Person-centered therapy where communication with the client is unconditionally positive. The therapist needs to genuinely care about the client needs for them to fully express themselves successfully. Furthermore, clients should be encouraging to make their own choices which model how to identify and use power responsibly. Hence, this will help the client feel more confident in everyday life when making a meaningful
Current research implies that an empathetic clinician-client relationship and interrelated ecosystems play the majority role in the success of therapy (Kilpatrick & Holland, 2009). The clinician’s ability to be present and actively perceive what the client is experiencing is of utmost importance in creating a therapeutic alliance. It is imperative that the clinician gains positive regard towards the client and their environment displaying honest acceptance towards the client no matter what issues are presented in session. This closely relates to a sincere presentation of genuineness that instills a feeling of honesty within the client and clinician (Kilpatrick & Holland, 2009). An experienced clinician builds upon the therapeutic
"I swear that. That woman is trying to kill me," Jackson exclaimed, walking into his and April's bedroom. Letting out a frustrated sigh, running his hand over his face, pinching the bridge of his nose.
But I had realized that I do not have to have all the answers and I am not here to give solution to the client. Instead, I am here to assistant the client in finding solution to their problems that would work for them. Therefore, when I am stuck I would have to paraphrased or summarized the client statement or conversation that the client had said to me. I would always keep in mind that I have to be an active listener and listen to my client with non-judgmental. This is only reason that I was able to continue with my session with my client (husband) and most of the time I did not let our relationship interfered with the counseling session. During the interview I had use the reflection of meaning, interpretation and reframing. Meaning is how my client feels about the situation. Interpretation is what I think he is feeling about the situation. As for the reframing I had assisted the client to find an alternative way for client to approach the
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.