Elements of Counseling

1. The COUNSELOR – the “helper” in

the counseling process; a person
who is professionally capable to
extend help.
2. The COUNSELEE- the “helpee” in
the counseling relationship; the
person who seeks help and lets
himself/herself be subjected for
counseling
3. The COUNSELING ENVIRONMENT –
a place to facilitate counseling. An
office or a cubicle/nook but most of all
a good counseling relationship that
should prosper.
4. The COUNSELING RELATIONSHIP
- The therapeutic relationship in
counselling is also known as the
therapeutic alliance. The term is
used to identify how counsellors and
clients connect with one another and
build their relationship together.
 Counseling Goals
• Facilitating behavioral change.
• Helping improve the client’s ability
to both establish and maintain
relationships.
• Helping enhance the client’s
effectiveness/self-efficacy and
their ability to cope.
 Counseling Goals
• Helping promote the decision-making
process.
• Facilitating client potential.
• Enhancing potential and enriching self.
• Helping modify bad habits.
 Some Hindrances to Effective
Communication during Counseling
Sessions
1. Giving advice
2. Moralizing and preaching
3. Judging or criticizing
4. Praising and agreeing
5. Reassuring
 Therapist variables
• Relational Variables
• Professional Variables
• Demographic and Diversity Variables
• Personality Variables
• Developmental and Personal
Variables
 Client Variables
• Client variables substantially influence the
effectiveness of psychotherapy (Clarkin &
Levy, 2004).
• Demographic characteristics (e.g., age,
gender, educational level)
• Cultural factors (e.g., religious beliefs,
beliefs about mental illness)
• Individual factors (e.g., presenting problem,
personality characteristics)
 Components of Counseling
Relationship
• Professional intimacy
• Power
• Empathy
• Respect
• Trust
 Stages of Counseling
1. BUILDING/ESTABLISHMENT OF
RELATIONSHIP
• The counselor takes initiative to establish a
climate conducive to mutual respect, trust and
open communication.

2. ASSESSMENT OF THE PROBLEM

(Problem Identification and Exploration)
• This the information-gathering phase where
the counselor seeks to distinguish between
what might be called surface problems and
those that are more complex.
3. GOAL SETTING
(Planning for Problem Solving)
• A plan is laid to solve the problem and to
attain the goal.
4. INITIATING INTERVENTIONS
(Solution Application)
• The counselor encourages the clients to act
on their determined problem solution. The
counselor maintains contact with the
counselee as a manner of support and
encourage.
5. TERMINATION AND FOLLOW-UP
• The decision to terminate counseling can
be made by either the counselor or the
counselee.
• When the counselees’ concerns are dealt
with they may choose to terminate
counseling although it is made clear to
them that they can go back for
counseling should the need arises.
BASIC FACILITATING/COUNSELING SKILLS

1. Attending Behaviors
• Attentiveness is one way of
communicating commitment and
involvement to the client.
• It is primarily communicated through:
A. Facial Expression
>eye contact
>head nods
>animation
B. Bodily Positions and Movements
• The GC will be more able to listen to his/her
client if he/she feels relaxed rather than tense
and your client will feel less tense if you do
not appear tense.
• Body language
C. Verbal Response/s
• Leads/responses to communicate interest,
concern, emphatic understanding,
unconditional positive regard, nonjudgmental
attitude.
• They have immediate impact upon the client.
GC’s Verbal Responses (Lucian, 1975)
1. Acceptance
- “Uh-huh”, “I see”, nodding
2. Restatement
- Exact repetition
3. Clarification
4. Summarization
5. General Leads
- An invitation to say more
7. Interpretation
- Similar to emphatic communication
8. Supposition
- A light suggestion with consequences explored
9. Facilitation
- This is information-giving to explain what
something means or requires.
10. Interpellation
- This is to establish frequency, intensity and
duration of the problem.
11. Rejection
- It is based on tangible evidences.
2. Listening Skills
• It is an extremely important dimension of
GC’s work by hearing the client
accurately, seeing the point of view and
feeling the world as they experience it.

3. Observation Skills
- It is listening with the eyes.
a. Naturalistic
b. Participative
 CORE CONDITIONS OF COUNSELING
1. Empathy

2. Positive Regard
- It is caring for your client for no other reason
that the fact the he/she is human and
therefore worthy.
- Tolerance and non-judgmental nature allows
for the development of trust and strengthens
their own bonds with others in a more
positive light
3. Genuineness
- It refers to the characteristic of
transparency, realness, honesty, or
authenticity of the GC.
- Hence, he/she shares thoughts and
feelings in ways that do not manipulate or
control the client.
4. Concreteness
- It promptly seeks specifies rather than
generalities.
 TYPES OF COUNSELING
ACCORDING TO AREAS COVERED

1. Academic/Educational
- It focuses mainly on school or academic
concerns:
a. School selection;
b. School entry;
c. School adjustment; and
d. School maintenance.
2. Career/Vocational
• It centers on:
a. selection of or the proper preparation for the
world of work;
b. decisions on whether to pursue a degree or
non-degree course, field of concentration for
college and/or after college; and
c. work opportunities during and after college
as well as work entry, adjustment,
maintenance and transfer are also a concern
(Villar, 2009).
3. Personal-Social
• It focuses on the intrapersonal and
interpersonal growth of a person.
It dwells on different aspects of a
person’s life and on different life
experiences.
 TYPES OF COUNSELING
ACCORDING TO PARTICIPANTS
1. Individual Counseling
2. Group Counseling
- It is extended to several people with
similar concerns and desired common
goals.
3. Multiple Counseling
- There is more than one counselor that
handle the case.
 COUNSELING APPROACHES
1. Clinical or Directive Counseling
(Edward Williamson)
- The GC helps the clients develop their full
potentials while balancing respect for client’s
right to decide on their own life goals and the
adherence to certain values and goals that
would meet the needs of the society.
- The GC can give prescriptions or advices,
provided these are based on a thorough
knowledge of the client’s concerns and
circumstances.
Clinical or Directive Counseling
(cont’n.)
- The GC widens the horizon of his/her
client who sees only a narrow path
of life
- Counselor-centered approach
- The most friendly of the approaches
2. Client/Person-Centred /Non-Directive/
Rogerian Approach/Counseling (Carl Rogers)
- It stresses the client’s ability to handle his/her
own concerns.
- Counseling leads to voluntary choice of goals
and a conscious selection of courses of action.
- The goal is to help the client arrive at self-
actualization.
- the emphasis is on the individual and not on
the problem.
- Emotional elements or feelings aspects are
stressed rather than intellectual aspects.
3. Eclectic Counseling
(Charles Frederic Thorne)
- The GC is allowed to use a combination
of strategies/approaches.
- It is flexible to address individual
differences.
- The focus is the person in the present
situation rather than the past.
4. Behavior Modification (BF Skinner)
- It is the systematic use of various procedures
aimed at changing behavior in terms of goals
agreed upon by both the client and the GC.
- Its underlying principle is that all behaviors are
learned and can be therefore unlearned.
- Operant conditioning attempts to eliminate
maladaptive behaviors through:
a. Extinction;
b. Satiation;
c. Negative reinforcement; and
d. Counter conditioning
- Reciprocal inhibition techniques are based on
the tenet that a person cannot be relaxed and
anxious at the same time. Thus, training the
client how to relax and perform the feared but
desired behavior while relaxed is seen to be
effective.
e.g. Assertiveness Training, Systematic
Desensitization and In-vivo or Contact
Desensitization
- To expose the client to the avoided situation or
object in less gentle ways: Aversive Therapy;
Emotional Flooding; and Implosive Therapy
5. Reality Therapy (William Glasser)
- It focuses on the development of success identity
which is characterized by right, responsible, and
realistic behavior.
- Failure identity is created when two basic needs
are not satisfied.
- Work is the “here and now”.
- GC and client work out together for the
appropriate plan.
- Since responsibility is the goal, the client is not
allowed to give excuses or punished for failure to
perform the planned actions, but the GC pursued
the work until the appropriate goals are attained.
6. Rational-EmotiveTherapy /RET (Albert Ellis)
- Problems and unhappiness arise because of
irrational ideas, not because of events.
- Thus, therapy should focus on the
development of rational ideas or changed
philosophy of life which all human beings are
capable of.
- It focuses on the ABC Theory: while A is often
considered the activating agent or the event
encountered and seen as causing the
problem, it is actually B, the belief of the client
about the event that brings about C or those
negative consequences.
7. Gestalt Conditioning (Fritz Peris)
- It aims to help the client develop self-
integration.
- Peris believed that the healthy person is not
one without needs but one who is aware that
he/she has needs and does something to have
these needs met.
- Awareness is the key word.
- Only the present is considered important.
- The focus is not “Why” but “How” and
“What”.
- Using the word “I”..declarative statements
8. Transactional Analysis (Eric Berne)
- Human beings have three ego states:
Parent; Adult and Child
- It helps the client see what his/her
predominant ego state is and how this
might be affecting the way he/she is living
life.
- The client is assisted in gaining social
control of his/her life by learning to use all
ego states where appropriate.
- Game Analysis and Life Script Analysis
9. Brief Therapy
- It deals with one problem at a time and
looks for bite-sized solutions.
- The belief is that change can be effected
most easily if the goal of change is
reasonably small and clearly stated.
- The experience of a small but definite
change lead to further self-improvement.
10. Solution-Focused Therapy
- It focuses on the positive, on the solution
rather than the problem, and on the
future in order to facilitate change in the
desired direction.
- It is guided by three ground rules:
a. If it is not broken, don’t fix it;
b. If it works, do more of it; and
c. If it does not work, do something
different.
11. Cognitive Therapy (Aaron Beck)
- It postulated that thoughts, beliefs, attitudes
and perceptual biases influence what
emotions are experienced and to what extent.
- It is a treatment to alter negative thoughts
that create negative emotions and,
consequently, felt problems.
- It is believed that that negative thoughts have
been developed in childhood and become
intrusive without the individual’s awareness.
- The GC must help the client replace these
negative thoughts with more realistic
thoughts.
 ETHICAL CONSIDERATIONS
1. The client’s needs and welfare come first and
should be given priority over the GC’s needs.
2. GC are expected to know their boundaries of
their competence, and their own personal
and professional limitations.
3. Clients have the right whether to enter into a
counseling relationship with the specific GC
and must be told what to expect.
4. A counselee cannot be expected to
cooperate when he/she does not approve
the counseling set-up.
5. Confidentiality
When to break confidentiality?
• If there is an imminent danger to the client
himself, to another person, or the GC.
- Should there be a need to reveal information for
reasons other than imminent danger, the client’s
approval must be secured.
6. Imposition of GC’s values and philosophy of life
on the client is unethical
7. GCs are aware of their influential positions with
respect to clients, and they avoid exploiting the
trust and dependency of clients.
8. Avoidance of dual relationship
4. Placement Service
Placement is ensuring that people are in the
right place at the right time. It has to do with
helping people find a place that will
contribute to their physical, mental,
emotional, and spiritual health and well-
being so that they can be happy, contributing
members of society.
 TYPES OF PLACEMENT

1.Personal-Social
2.Academic/Educational
3.Career/Vocational
5. Follow-up Service
• A service extended to anyone to determine
goal attainment and customer satisfaction.
• It helps determine the status of the person
who received assistance and what other
assistance must be rendered so that it is
complete and holistic.
• It can determine the adequacy and
sufficiency of the programs and services
extended in meeting the needs of its
clientele.
6. Referral Service
• Referral is usually understood as the
action taken by persons within the
institution who see that a particular
person needs counselor assistance.
• Referral also refers to the assistance
rendered to individuals or their
significant others in obtaining services
from other people or agencies that might
be more effective in helping them.
References:
Villar, I. V. (2009), Implementing a Comprehensive
Guidance and Counseling Program in the
Philippines, Revised Edition, Aligned
Transformations Publication, Makati City

Review Notes (LET)

Hand-outs (Master of Arts in Guidance subjects)