Building Client Relationship

Assessment 4
Assessment 4: Written questions

The answers to the following questions will enable you to demonstrate your knowledge of:

 Legal and ethical considerations for counselling, and how these are applied in individual
practice
 Different agency and organisation models of counselling and intervention
 Types of goals that may be set for different circumstances
 Key concepts, principles and practices of 3 different decision-making models
 Obstacles to decision making and planning in the counselling context
 Problem solving and action planning techniques in the counselling context
 Referral options

1. List five legal and ethical concepts related to care provision and provide a brief description of
what each one covers.

- Lawful –practitioners identify principles, attitudes, and behaviours requires for ethical
practice that support safe, high quality services for clients.

- Working practice compliance – every organisation has its own rules to be followed by all
staff to maintain standards and avoid major failures and violations.

- Following organisation policies – organisation policies provides employees a guidance for

decision making. The policies establish boundaries, guidelines , and practices that is
accepted in the workplace. This also ensure compliance to law and and help minimise legal
and safety risks.

- Be consistent with ethical processes – means that our moral standars, action, and values
should not be contradictory. It means than we need to apply the same moral standards to
other situation to be consistent as this will show how we treat ourselves and how we treat
others.

- Duty of care obligations – a legal obligation or responsibility to portect the safety and
wellbeing of the clinets. It is to limit any behaviours that might casue harm to them.

2. Choose a code of ethics/conduct from an Australian counselling association. Describe the

objectives of that code (provide the link to the code of ethics you used to answer this
question). (250-300 words)

Respect Diversity
- The practitioner should offer a non-judgemental service, free from discrimination, and
honouring the individuality of the client.
- The practitioner work with clients in ways that affirm both the common humanity and the
uniqueness of each individual. They must be sensitive to te cultural context and worldview
of the client, whether individual, family, or community.
- The practitioner is responsible to respect the client’s ability to make decision based on
his/her own beliefs, vluse and context.
 - The practitioner needs to be aware of their own values, beliefs, gender, age, culture,
religion, spirituality, lifestyle, and sexual identity, and be aware of the impact of these so
that it may not conflict with therapeutic relationship.
- The practitioner is responsible to address any problems that may occur such as language
barrier and cultural difference and should know how to proceed or where to seek advice.

3. In your own words explain the reason and boundaries of counselling practice in the code of
ethics/conduct you used in questions 14: (Word count for each practice area is: reason 100-
200 words and boundaries 100 -200 words for each area of practice)

Area of practice What is the reason? What are the boundaries?

Professional limitations For counsellors to work a high Counsellors should be mindful
professional standard by of the limitations of their
delivering services that meet experience, training, and work
the client’s need and goals. within these limits.

For counsellors to maintain a Counsellor should give careful

professional competence
through professional
development
For counsellors to be aware
and understand legal
requirements including
mandatory reporting
requirements.
considerations in working with
different client groups.
Appropriate referral should be
given to other services if they
are not able to meet the
client’s need or if the client
needs additional services.

Discrimination For counsellors to understand Counsellors are responsible to

the implication of divertsity in work with clients in a way that it is
terms of quality and not discriminating against clients.
individuality and to offer a non-
judgemental professional Counsellors should also be aware
service, free from of their personal values, beliefs
discrimination, and honouring and assumptions.If the counsellor
the individuality and find themselves to be against to
uniquesness of each client. what the client’s values and
beliefs are, iti is necessary to
For counsellor to know that discuss supervision and, if needed,
clients who seek counselling can refer the client to another agency
be vulnerable. Thus, the of another practitioner.
counsellor’s attitude and values
can affect the quality of care
given to clients because
effective care practice need to
adapt to society and the needs
of individuals in it.

Duty of care Counsellors have duty of care Failure to do the duty could result
 and responsibility no to mislead, in legal action against the
misguide, or misdirect clients. counsellor.

Counsellor ensures they abide When decisions need to be made

by the law and that the clients urgently, the counsellor need to
are protected from harm, abuse consider the guidelines that have
or injury and to promote their been set by the organisation and
wellbeing. This means that the balance it with his/her own
counsellor must anticipate risks instinctive reactions.
for clients and take care to
prevent them coming to harm.

Human rights Counsellors are responsible to Clients may feel offended if the
ensure that the client is being counsellor showed lack of
treated fairly by; receiving care sensitivity towards values,moral
and treatment with respect and standards and ethnicity. By this,
consideration, their right to the counsellor failed to adopt
privacy and confidentiality, proper techniques to engage
receiving accurate information clients building rapport and failed
about their treatment, and to respect the client human rights.
participate actively in decision Clients will most likely feel
making. dominated as the counsellor
becomes culturally blinded and
Another basic human rights authoritative. They will also feel
include the right to be heard like they are not being heard.
whether is economic, social
and cultural rights.

Work role boundaries For the clients to have clear
idea of the duties, rights, and
limitation of clients. Giving
cleas deifinition of the process
of counselling and the client’s
rights and responsibilities is
important to avoid confusion
and anxiety to the client. By
knowing their limitations will
help to develop the positive
and effective therapeutic
relatioinship.
Work health and safety Counsellors must take care their Client can present with multiple
own health and safety and
Practitioners should not engage in
any romantic or sexual
relationship with the client or
with other close members of their
clients during therapy and for at
least five years post-therapy. If
this incident arise in their work
with clients, it is essential to work
with the supervisor and referral
may be necessary.
Practitioners who become aware
that a client is initiating physical
touch during a session for the
purpose of sexual gratification
immediately puts an end to the
physical contact and seeks
supervision on the matter,
referring the client to another
practitioner if necessary.
issues like emotional, physical,
 make sure that the health and psychological concerns so risks
safety of others including clients such as blurring of boundaries,
and co-workers will not be failure to assess the client
adversely affected. properly, and failure to make
appropriate referrals can harm
Counsellors must explain to the both the client and the counsellor.
client any emergency
procedures in place.

4. Provide three types of counselling and intervention that may be used with clients.

Types of counselling:
- Individual therapy – focuses on the development of a one to one relationship with the client
that enables to explore negative thought and feelings.
- Family therapy – is a therapy for a group of family members. It helpts members dentify how
behaviours affects others, resolve conflicts, and open the communications between all
family members.
- Couples therapy – helps to understand and resolve conflicts to improve the relationship and
learn new skills to solidify their relationship such as open communication and problem
solving.

Interventions:
- Cognitive Behaviour Therapy – focuses on how a person’s thougths, beliefs, and attitudes
affect their feelings and behaviour. It equips the client with coping strategies that help them
deal with challenges.
- Mindfulness based therapy – helps clients learn how to recognise a sense of being and see
themselves separate to their thoughts and feelings. It provides clarity of thoughts and helps
to easily let go of hegative thoughts.
- Emotional Therapy - is a person centred therapy that helps the clients develop a better
understanding of their desires, needs, feelings, and behaviours and how these are negatively
affected. It aims to help client develop their true positive potential by working out their
feelings and emotions rather that their mind.

5. For the following three example client circumstances, provide a goal for each that may be of
use to clients:

 A client who is suffering with depression – to minimise the symptoms of the depressive
feeling through improved coping skills.

 A client who has experienced domestic abuse – to acknowledge the client’s perception of
fear and it’s indicator and ensure the client’s safety.

 A client who is unable to find a job. – to refer them to agencies that would help them look
for a job based on their interests.

6. Briefly describe the following decision-making models:

 The six-step method

 The six-steps of decision making are:
- Define the problem – helping the client to identify what the problem is and what they
want to achieve.
- Identify the decision criteria - next step is to help the client discover what is important
to the when making as decision by letting them write out their interests, values, goals,
and personal preferences.
- Allocate weight of the criteria – have the client rank each goals in order of their
importance.
- Develop alternatives – generate solutions that will allow the clients client to achieve
their desired result.
- Evaluate the alternatives – analyse, evaluate, and rate each alternative options.
- Select the best alternatives – after ranking each alternative, the client can choose the
alternative that scores the highest.

 The seven-step method

The seven-steps of decision making are:

- Identify the decision – the first step is to identify the problem and opportunity and
address to it.
- Gather information – to make a decision based on facts and datas.
- Identify alternatives – with the clear understanding of the situation, it is important to
identify various solutions and options to determine which action is the best ways to
achieve the objectives.
- Weigh the evidence- identify the potential pitfall for each alternative by looking at the
pros and cons or by asking for a second opinion.
- Choose among the alternatives – this is the part where decisions are to be make once
everything is clean. All relevant datas were gatheres and all possible options were
considered.
- Take action – the time to develop a plan and act on it.
- Review the decision – this is the step where there is a need to look back on
everydicision made and check if goals are met by taking notes of the result that can be
used as a future reference.

 S.W.O.T. analysis.

- S.W.O.T stands for: Strength, Weakness, Opportunity, Threat, is tool used to identify the
internal and external factors that can be useful to achieve the objectives in the planning
process. It helps to organise information gathered and explore possibilities,
opportunities, solutions to achieve success.

7. Provide five ways you can help a client to overcome obstacles to decision-making.

- Let the clent know their rights to make decision and make them participate in the
process.
- Recognise and accept the ambivalent feelings and help the client identify and explore
his/her needs, feelings, thoughts and behaviours.
- Provide enough and reliable data to clients that would help them make an appropriates
decision.
- Provide adequate support to client so thay they will be motivated in making decision.
 - Identify which resources are lacking and assist client to look out for alternative
approaches.

8. Provide two problem-solving and two action planning techniques that you can use with
clients.

Problem Solving
a.) Miracle Questions – aid the clinet to look at how the future will be different when the
problem is no longer present. It helps the clinet to be more open to future possibilities by
thinking of a solution to problems and dream the life they want to see after the therapy
process.
b.) Scaling questions – these are questions that allow a client to rate their experience by using a
scale from 0-10 to assess the present circumstances or progress. This allow the client to
evaluate their motivation to change and explore the positive and commitment to change.

Action planning
a.) S.M.A.R.T goals – setting goals is an effective wat to increase motivation and helps to create
the changes the client wants. It allows the client to creare a vision of how they want their life
to be by focusing their attention to important things. Goals should be based on the client’s
values and it should be clear and measurable. It should be achievable, practical, and with a
timeframe.
b.) Strength-based approach – therapies that discusses the strengths of client in relation to
change would help them balance their strengths to be successful in achieving their goals.

9. Watch the video of a First Counselling Interview (https://www.youtube.com/watch?

v=upbo4KWUf24 ) answer the following questions?

a) LIst three communication techniques the counsellor used?

Attending - the counsellor shows that he is physically and physchologically present

during his session with the client.
Listening – the counsellor shows that he understood the context of the client’s
concern and respond positively to cthe client.
Probing or Questioning – the counsellor asked questions that enables the client to
share any relevant issues of her life despite the high level of anxiety the client is
experiencing during the session.

b) Describe at least one thing you would do differently? (100 words per questions)

Based on the video, the client is experiencing high level of anxiety, nail picking,
lacking of eye contact, and little bit defensive. A counsellor’s job is to initially distract
the client from the axiety and give the client the comfortable environment for them
to be relaxed. If I were to do one thing differently, it is the counsellor’s posture. Non-
verbal communication is critical in counselling and I noticed that the counsellor is
leaning back too far from the client. By observing the clients body movements, the
counsellor can mirror the movements to help the client to feel more comfortable
and to show involvement and interest to the client’s concerns.

c) How did the counsellor address the client’s uncertainty in the counselling
 relationship? (100 words per questions)

The video shows that the client expresses anxiety and is somehow unwilling to
engage fully with the counsellor. It shows that she is having a trust issue with the
counsellor and uncomfortable during the session. The counsellor addressed the
client’s uncertainty using some skills that supported the client during their early
therapeutic relationship. The counsellor acknowledged the client’s anxiety and he
move depends on the clients pace by attending to the client’s presenting issues and
allowing the client to build confidence in the relationship during the session. Also,
the client used communication techniques that would make the client feel at ease.

d) In what ways do you think this interview would have been different if
the counsellor had used the SRS and ORS? (100 words per questions)

SRS would be a great help if it was used by the counsellor because he will be
able to identify how the client felt during the session. This feedback tool
encourages clients to express their opinions about the therapeutic relationship
and the counselling process. I will let the counsellor identify the problems and
see what to improve for the next session. ORS would be a great help for the
counsellor to see what are the major areas in life that the client I shaving an
issues with. It helps to identify the reason for seeking treatment and helps to
track the progress while they are working towards their goals. Also, with
anxious clients, it may be helpful for them express theirselves by scaling.

10. Explain at least two reasons why a counsellor assists clients to identify underlying issues?
(200-250 words)

- Client seeks counselling for various issus and issues that requires immediate action are
of the highest priority and urgency. This may indicate that crisis intervention is needed.
Clients may not verbally say it so it is critical to identify the signs of distress to be able for
the counsellor to manage the situation quickly. Immediate action may be required to
ensure patients safety and/or ensure the safety of others. Situations that requires
immediate attention mat include; neglect, abuse, risk of harm, risk of self-harm.

- To identify the primary concern, the counsellor needs to reflect on the person’s story.
The context of the story can give an insight into the issues that contribute to the primary
concern. Also, understanding the past can help make sense the of present as there could
be a possible linkage between the client’s past experience to their present issue.

11. Why may you need to make a client referral, and provide two examples of this?

Referral is needed when the client presents a problem or if he/she is in a situation that is outside
of the counsellors range of knowledge or if the counsellor believe that sessions done with client
was not effective.  For example, the counsellor may have a working knowledge of eating
disorders but feels the client would be best served by seeing someone with specialist rather than
generic knowledge so the counsellor may refer the client to his/her doctor and support the
client until a diagnosis is made. Another instance is when the counsellor feels that he/she is
unable to work with the client. An example of this, is if the counsellor is experiencing the same
situation with the client. Here the counsellor make make the decision that he/she will refer the
client to another counsellor