This essay will provide a definition of counselling and deliberate what a counsellor can do with the tools available to him/her during the counselling. Counselling is a progression of helping others handle difficulties (Geldard & Geldard 2012). Most people seek counselling when they feel they are unable to cope alone with any one issue or when they need external support to help with alternative options. Counselling is a connection between a trained counsellor and a client. Interaction between the counsellor and client yields change in the client’s reasoning, understanding and perception of feelings and behaviour. The counselling process aids a person in figuring out and gaining insight in matters and helps them to reach the proper choices they need to make in their life. Counselling is often practiced during difficult periods in someone’s life, however, counselling is also useful and needed in a person’s life at any given time. As noted by Seligman and Csikszentmihalyi (2000), “Treatment is not just fixing what is broken; it is nurturing what is best” (p.9).
Various counselling practices are there to assist individuals to achieve cognizance, intuition and to discover avenues for problem solving. These practices, which are also referred to as counselling tools, have a way of being useful when applied by a seasoned counsellor. Timing is crucial while using these tools as is the counsellor’s ability to be self-aware. A counsellor has to make the differentiation between how the clients affect them and how they affect the clients. Besides all the methods, it is essential for a counsellor to be self-aware of feelings and thoughts in order to come up with educated answers (McLeod, 2007). Some of the most commonly used counselling tools are Attending, Questioning, Paraphrasing, Summarising and Challenging. Although there are many other available skills as you progress, these were the skills that were mainly used in this counselling session.
In this paper, I represent the part of a counsellor with a client who has a difficult time communicating with her mother. This permits me to use a few of the counselling tools to assist her in achieving a certain amount of gain, such as clarity of her problem and an understanding to accept possible solutions. Some limitations will be discussed in this essay as well.
The client, Nisha Dave Nair, is 22 years of age. She had recently embarked on a diploma course at a local institute. She is currently plagued by disputes with her mother. Nisha is unable to handle and communicate with her mom. Nisha’s second child, a boy, out of wedlock, lives with her mom and Nisha does not currently have access to her son. Her eldest daughter, also out of wedlock, had been given up for adoption at birth. She is not financially stable but she is working towards improving herself. Nisha had already thought of things she might say to her mother, to gain access to her son, but had not found the courage to follow up with action. I was tasked with counselling Nisha in the most appropriate manner using some of the following skills, stated in the next few paragraphs, which were utilised during the counselling session.
Most of the necessary aspects of the physical setting, adhering to contextual attending, were covered. Such as positioning of chairs, provision of drinking water, tissue and the privacy of the location. The permission to record the session was also gained at the beginning of the session (see L1 to L3 of the transcript). Hackney & Cormier (2009) & McLeod (2007), explain that a counsellor must lead by following the client. This is accomplished when the counsellor encourages the client to state their situation using verbal and non-verbal means without too much interuption. Attending, one of the skills, also takes place when the client is allowed to talk continually without much interruption (Pelling, Bowers and Armstrong, 2006). The non-verbal methods I used to encourage the client were – learning forward and thereby looking interested, maintaining constant eye contact, and keeping the tone of my voice and my distance from the client at moderate levels. I leaned forward and touched her once to give her assurance to carry on (see L9 of the transcript). I encouraged Nisha and showed interest by using verbal encouragers like, ‘mmm’ a few times, nodding my head and saying ‘I see’. This was how I showed Nisha that I was interested in what she was saying.
Mearns & Thorne (2007) explain that empathy is assuming your client’s state of mind while separating our own state of mind in order to better ascertain the client’s point of view. Egan (2010) suggests that throughout all stages of counselling, empathy needs to be utilized. I used ‘I sense a hesitation’ (see L9 of the transcript) as an empathic response for Nisha. I realized that Nisha had a slight hesitation and voiced it. She acknowledged my consideration of this hesitation and it was overcome, allowing us to progress on. I also managed to pick up on another essential feeling – there was fear underlying her frustration (see N14 of the transcript). I could have looked into this with Nisha if I had realised it at the moment through instinct. However, I failed to do this.
(Pelling et al., 2006), explains that paraphrasing helps to let the client know that a point has been understood by the counsellor. This also helps the counsellor to gain accuracy in understanding what was said by the client (see L8 of the transcript). There are times when the understanding can be inaccurate, and paraphrasing helps. Paraphrasing helped me define what Nisha had decided about not giving up her son for adoption. This helped us to move on to the actual issue at hand. While conducting a counselling session, using questions is an imperative tool, because this leads the counsellors to discover the client’s apprehensions. However, this is an ability that has to be accomplished and controlled. Effective questions actually help clients to talk freely and to identify issues. It also shows that the counsellors have an understanding and are showing concern towards the client (Geldard & Geldard, 2012). Throughout the sitting, I kept this in mind. For instance, more open-ended questions were used compared to closed questions (see L12 of the transcript). This allowed the client to open up and explain more by giving more information. She was realizing new things about her situation. An important thing to consider is the space that I gave Nisha to take her time to think and fully answer before I posed the next question. This provided her with enough time to consider the question, and not to feel pressured to give an immediate answer (see L12, N12 of the transcript). There are different purposes for questions. Open ended questions give the client room to talk more while closed questions demand that a one or two word response is required to gain accurate information. Asking the appropriate question at the appropriate time is of great importance. I had used open ended questions (see L11, L12 of the transcript) to learn more about Nisha’s plans and her positive aspects. I needed her to say them to realise that there was hope.
Egan (2010) also asserts that focus and direction are provided by a good summary. Towards the close of the sitting, I gathered some matters we had discussed within the context of her problem and anything else that had to be looked into (see L17 of the script). Nisha looked thoughtful after I finished with this. However she was still afraid to approach her mother and I had to suggest a third party to be present so as to allay her fears. I summarised everything to give her some focus but the fear was just too overwhelming for her. Egan (2010) explains that using challenging as a tool would help clients discover unemployed strengths and resources that they had. A challenge used for Nisha was ‘How have you tried to make amends with your mom? Is there anything that you could have done better?’ I did this to help her visualize doing something better or different. Nisha responded by admitting that she could have been a bit more open and that she could have seen it from her mother’s perspective instead of her own (see L15 of the transcript).
This essay has given a few definitions of counselling and discussed what the counsellor is able to do with the counselling setting to make the client feel safe and comfortable. It also discussed the various tools that a counsellor has access to and is able to use to assist in the counselling of a client in order to be effective. Generally, the session’s outcome aided Nisha in gaining a better perspective to her problems with her mother and she came to terms with her emotional state and indecisions.
However, not all sessions go according to plan, even with adequate preparation. In hindsight, some of the skills might have been used at the wrong time. I was anxious and very unsure about my own abilities as this was my first counselling session. I am able to identify certain points that could have been better. Firstly, time management needs to be improved. Due to my inability to keep track of time effectively, I kept on thinking that I was taking too long and tried to rush the session. When I saw that an idea was accepted, I failed to explore more possible ideas because I was still thinking about how long I had taken with Nisha. Proper time management would have allowed me to end the counselling session more competently. I should have explored different kinds of questioning skills, such as scaling questions and miracle questions (Geldard & Geldard, 2012). Concerning consideration of emotions and content, I could have probed a bit more into Nisha’s fears before suggesting a solution (see L14, L18 of the transcript). I was thinking of solving the problem instead of allowing her to find her own solutions. This might lead her to be dependent on future counsellors for answers and direction. In the end, she still reiterated her fears (see N20 of the transcript). Nonetheless, quite a few shortcomings were discovered in this experience. With more chances in the future, I will be able to improve and achieve better results in the process of helping someone through counselling. I may have handled this counselling session in this manner due to a lack of time. I only had fifteen minutes to help Nisha. During which, I had to also explore and apply counselling skills and tools, which were required for this assignment. The short timespan could have affected my performance.
In conclusion, the insights that I gained from this basic counselling session was very valuable. The use of the basic counselling skills through my participation in a counselling session, even in the wrong context at times, and my inability to manage time is something I can improve on. The forced opinions to the client, and my own inability to control my own emotions by putting myself in the client’s shoes and feeling for her but not really thinking for her can also be something to work on. I tried to solve the issue as I would have, if I had been put in her position. As part of self-awareness, we have to differentiate how our clients affect us and how we affect our clients. This understanding shows that even if we apply some of the elementary requirements, there is still a need to hone and develop the timely use of these skills appropriately to assist in helping the client to help themselves.