The process involved in establishing a counselling relationships includes many factors to ensure that a client feels safe and comfortable with a counsellor to explore his or her feelings with them. The counsellor must offer a clean, uncluttered, protected environment with no distractions and is safe from others hearing the conversations, and greet the client in a friendly welcoming manner. The room which the counselling takes place can have a great influence on the relationship so make sure it is welcoming and relaxing. The counsellor must build rapport with the client for the client to trust them and allow free flow of information. Rapport is the sense of connecting with someone. It is something that builds up over time by showing the client they can trust the counsellor and made to feel comfortable. As a counsellor/client relationship, although not friends it is important to highlight common interests between them, be empathetic and develop understanding. The client will unconsciously notice similarities and start to feel in tune with the counsellor. To build rapport with a client a counsellor can – - Offer a clean, uncluttered, safe-environment with no interruptions or distractions - Revise key notes before and after session to remember issues, names of partner etc., (forgetting things like this that are important to the client can damage the relationship) - Remain in a professional manner regardless of issue or behaviour - Don’t be judgemental as rapport can be effected
Another important factor in the opening stage is to draw up a contract and discuss the content with the client, this will demonstrate it’s a working relationship and both the client and counsellor will know their barriers, it also gives structure and prevents any misunderstanding in the relationship. By having a contract it demonstrates to the client they are safe and able to speak freely also it shows the client that each session if totally confidential, there are exceptions to the rule and these will be included in the contract and what the process will be if they disclose anything that is unlawful.
I understand counselling to be a helping practice that differs from other helping activities, such as teaching for example. Counselling requires professional training and is specifically contracted or explicitly agreed. It has a theoretical base and uses specific methods within an ethical framework. The relationship between the counsellor and the client is built upon mutual expectation and is central to the process of the client under-going significant change in their lives.
This essay will explore the counselling relationship along with the benefits and limitations as well as discussing other factors that have an important impact in relation to the outcome of counselling. Counselling is an interpersonal relationship between the client and qualified therapist, the relationship involves communicating with the client and using skills to explore the client's feelings. The counselling/ therapeutic relationship can be used in all types of counselling such as psychodynamic, humanistic, behavioural, person centred and cognitive therapy. As mental health disorders increase so does the need to deliver effective counselling, which means that the therapeutic relationship is more crucial than ever. (Miller, Hubble, Duncan and Wampold 2010; Norcross and Lambert 2011).
This essay intends to introduce the reader to the most important skills involved within developing and maintaining a therapeutic relationship between a client and the therapist or counsellor. The onus will be on Humanistic counselling but many of these skills are central to all counselling types.
Allowing for our ethical codes of conduct, if the client is someone we feel we can proceed with, then as always, the first stage would be to develop a good rapport and gain the clients trust to develop an honest and open relationship with them. The client centred approach as always is the best method for this – to put the client at ease in a non-judgemental space where they can express their emotions and explore what it is they want to achieve with therapy. In giving the therapist an
The first is establishing rapport. Establishing rapport refers to creating an open, trusting, and safe relationship with the couple or family. The course of establishing an effective couple–clinician relationship will vary, but an overarching goal of the
Moving further on in the counselling session, the counsellor must be able to "tune in" with client. Being on the same wavelength is important aspect of "joining". By tuning in to the other individual past experiences that made them who they are today, we will be able to understand their beliefs and principle is life whoich resulted from their each unique experiences. By doing so, we will be able to respect and value our client as an individual thus building mutual respect between us and the client in the relationship. This will also refrain us from talking down to our client but instead will be able to get along well. This is what we need to acheive as counsellors.
It is said that building a good rapport with a client for the purpose of hypnotherapy is paramount to it’s success, without it a client cannot receive treatment to the full therapeutic value. But what exactly do we mean by “Rapport”? And
The foundation of therapy starts by building rapport with the client and applying strategies when necessary to overcome a variety of barriers. It is imperative to have rapport with a client and to be aware of barriers to facilitate a good treatment outcome. This will take practice and the use of methods and strategies ready to be implemented when needed. There are many components to building a good client rapport such as: intimacy, vulnerability, exploration of inner challenges, self-awareness, staying present; inner resiliency, empathy, anxiety management, and self-integration, and relationship acceptance. The two types of barriers are internal and external and this is for both the client and the therapist. The common barriers to rapport are countertransference and transference. Strategies for overcoming barriers are: Pause Moment and self-awareness. It also requires skills such as being genuine, sensitive, open, and
To be able to help a client to access their deepest thoughts and open up for discussion that is both helpful and meaningful, there are several specific microskills to know about to enhance the communication with the client (Australian Institute of Professional Counsellors, 2009). These communication skills are built through different stages and may feel a little unnatural at the beginning. However, counselling is not about giving advice, but about supporting and helping the client to find his/her own solutions. This makes counselling challenging on many levels as you need to be aware of your own behaviour (Perinatal Mental Health Project, n.d.).
Being attentive means giving all of your physical attention to another person so that you are fully present for them. This will help you to notice what the client is NOT saying, by noticing their body language, and also their tone and pace of voice. The use of non-verbal cues and the counsellor’s own body language conveys to the client that he is interested in what the client has to say. (Bolton 1979). Managing silences from the client shows
There are 3 main outcomes needed within this assignment. The fist outcome is to distinguish and describe the main principles needed for effective communication and interpersonal communication skills which will ensure the counsellor works with the client successfully. The second outcome is to identify practical and ethical issues needed which would create a safe environment when a
Once a rapport has been built, the counselors will be able to confront or address conflict with
For this essay there will be a critical evaluation of the counselling approaches and skills that are used which can guide the practice of education professionals and benefit relationships with children/ young people in supporting their social and emotional well-being. The approaches that will be looked at and compared are the Person-centred approach and the Psychodynamic approach. The approaches will be discussed and linked to the use in an educational context by teachers with children and young people. The strengths and weaknesses of these approaches will also be examined. It is important for teacher to support children and young people’s social and emotional development right for the start of their educational experiences in the early years. The statutory frame work for the early years published by the department for education in 2014 makes sure that every practitioner follows by law the learning and development requirements of every child. The DFE 2014 suggests educational programs have to include activities and experiences involving the children as suggested: personal social and emotional development entails assisting children to develop an encouraging view of themselves, and others; to make positive relationships and develop respect for others, progress on their social skills and acquire the skill how to deal and control their feelings, to know how to behaviour correctly in groups and to have self confidence in what they can do. From this practitioners can pick up on
As everybody is different and comes from different backgrounds, therefore give us all different values and beliefs, it is important to have an effective client-counsellor relationship based on four main areas of duty of care 1. Helper competence, 2. Client autonomy, 3. Confidentiality, 4. Client protection (Nelson-Jones, 2008). There will be times throughout the sessions with clients that your own values and belief creep in, and you do make judgement, therefore you as a counsellor have to know and acknowledge this happen and understand why it is happening.