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Attending Skills in Counselling By: MR Musonda CONTACT: 0977336942

This document discusses attending skills that are important for counselors to master in order to facilitate effective counseling. It outlines several key attending skills including creating a safe counseling environment, using body language, listening skills, probing skills, reflecting skills, goal setting skills, summarizing skills, and sub-skills of attending referred to by the acronym SOLER. The document emphasizes that counselors should create a comfortable counseling room and be mindful of both their own and their client's body language and gestures. It also discusses three levels of listening skills and different types of questions that can be used during counseling.

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musonda stephen
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460 views13 pages

Attending Skills in Counselling By: MR Musonda CONTACT: 0977336942

This document discusses attending skills that are important for counselors to master in order to facilitate effective counseling. It outlines several key attending skills including creating a safe counseling environment, using body language, listening skills, probing skills, reflecting skills, goal setting skills, summarizing skills, and sub-skills of attending referred to by the acronym SOLER. The document emphasizes that counselors should create a comfortable counseling room and be mindful of both their own and their client's body language and gestures. It also discusses three levels of listening skills and different types of questions that can be used during counseling.

Uploaded by

musonda stephen
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© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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ATTENDING SKILLS IN COUNSELLING

BY: MR MUSONDA
CONTACT: 0977336942
 The concept ‘attending’ refers to the process of how counsellors
attend to clients. There are some basic attending skills that
counsellors need to master in order to facilitate effective counselling.
 Among the elements of attending skills the following shall be
discussed in this lesson: counselling environment, body language,
emotional presence, listening, probing, reflecting, summarizing, goal
setting skills and the sub-skills of attending.
 Counselling environment Counselling environment refers to the place or
environment where counselling is taking place. It should be safe and
conducive. The room should be easy to access but not where there is a lot
of interruptions. The following minimum requirements may be suitable for
a counselling room:
I. At least two chairs- one for the counsellor and another for the client.
II. Adequate space
III. Adequate ventilation
IV. Sufficient lighting
V. Storage facility for files
VI. Side table
VII. Office desk
 Body language
Be mindful of the gestures made by your body and that of the client.
Your body is a means of communication to the client while the body of
the client is a source of information (MoH 2001).
 Listening skills
This is a basic tool used to gather information about the client (Egan 1994).
There are three basic levels of listening in a counselling session.
First level: listening to the client’s verbal communication.
I. Actual words
II. Factual information (facts of the story)
III. Underlying messages (explicity and implicity meanings)
IV. Feelings and mood
V. Distortions and gaps (information avoided, omitted or misrepresented)
 Second level of listening skill: listening to non-verbal behavior which
include:
 Bodily behavior e.g body movements, posture and gestures
 Facial expressions e.g twisted lips, frowns, wrinkles on the face,
smile
 Voice tone e.g pitch (low or high)
 General appearance e.g type of dress, walking mannerisms or sitting
pattern.
 Non-verbal cues and messages are interpreted differently in
different cultures and it is important for the counsellor to develop a
working knowledge of the meaning of non-verbal behavior in the
environment in which s/he works (Ivey et al 1993). Such knowledge
may help the counsellor to be non- judgmental in relation to non-
verbal behavior.
 Third level of listening skill: involves listening to oneself as a
counsellor in terms of one’s feelings toward the client and aspects of
his/her story i.e. nervousness because the client is of higher status
than the counsellor or being judgmental of the client. Be neutral as a
counsellor.
 Probing skills: Probing is a skill in counselling used to explore, clarify
and discover information about the client and his/her concern. You
are however, encouraged to vary the probing skills. For instance, use
closed questions to the minimum and open ended questions to the
maximum. You may also use interjections but to the minimal instead
use prompts and restatements more.
 Reflecting: Reflecting skills entail that the counsellor reflects clients’
feelings and attitude towards the concern. For instance, You seem to
be angry with your husband’s reaction. Or are you angry with your
husband’s reaction?
 Goal setting skills: This skill is intended to help empower clients to
achieve what they want in relation to desired behavior change. Goals
must be clear and realistic if the client has to achieve them. Clients
who can measure their behavior change usually become motivated in
sustaining their behavior change.
 Summarizing: Summary can be at the beginning, on going or at the
end. Summarizing helps the counsellor to ensure that s/he has gotten
what the client has said correctly. Do not assume what the client
mean instead summarize or restate to verify whether you have gotten
the client correctly.
 The sub-skills of attending. The sub skills of attending are also
referred to by the acronym SOLER.
 S = Sit squarely with the client. Face the client. But some cultures
may inhibit the client from sitting squarely.
 O= use open posture. Avoid crossed arms and leaning backwards
can be a sign of less involvement in the issues the client is bringing
out. But still note that cultural influences may affect the posture of a
counsellor.
 L = lean toward the client. Leaning towards the client implies that
the counsellor is with the client or is interested in what the client is
narrating.
 E= have direct eye contact with the client. Truth is usually
established through eye contact. Again it is important to consider
cultural influence on this fact. Ladies especially in some cultures are
discouraged to look into the eyes of a man or an elderly person. So
avoidance of eye contact should not always mean that the client is
guilty.
 R= Be of relaxed mood as a counsellor.
END OF TOPIC I THANK YOU FOR YOUR ATTENTION!!

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