Anthony Ferguson 1

ROLE PLAY: THEORY AND PRACTICE

The first time I learned anything about a counseling theory I did not understand

what was meant by the term. What was a “Counseling Theory?” It sounded pretty

complicated and like a bunch of psychological jargon, like people just sitting up and

theorizing Socratically about nebulous and abstract ideas that had no application to the

real world. Reading about Carl Rogers and “creating an environment” in which the

person can engage in “self-actualization”, or how DiClemente and Prochaska’s Stages

of Change model explained in real terms how an individual travels through various

benchmarks in the process of behavioral change, just seemed like words on a page to

me. That was until two things happened: I was asked to write about how the theories

applied to my life, and I engaged in a role play. It was through applying the theories to

real life situations to which I could relate (i.e., my own) that I was able to fully grasp the

idea that these theories have some weight and usefulness to them if they are done

correctly.

During the role play for this class, I worked with my classmate Jennifer. Both of

us were willing participants in that she reached out to me, and I was more than ready to

work with her. It was a delight to have someone who was as serious about acting out

the role play as I was. In acting as the counselor, I decided to utilize two models or

theories- Motivational Interviewing, and Person-Centered counseling. MI and

Person-Centered counseling go hand-in-hand within the counseling context for a

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number of reasons. A brief explanation of both theories and interventions will

demonstrate my point.

Motivational Interviewing is a particular form of persuasion that uses various

skills in attempting to help an individual recognize a need to change and to develop

one’s own motivation and strategies for doing so. The core counseling skills of MI,

which include OARS (Open-ended questions, Affirmations, Reflections, and

Summaries), are used to help gather information on the client and to facilitate the

person’s journey towards consciousness-raising and developing a plan-of-action in

changing behavior. In our role play exercise, the skills of MI were used with Jennifer,

when I asked her open-ended questions such as “Can you tell me about…?” or “What

would be different if…?” Among other questions. In addition, affirmations and reflections

of Jennifer’s strengths and statements were used throughout the interview, which

served to strengthen her resolve to continue to talk. I could tell that she was getting

more comfortable talking when I would reflect her statements and affirm her strengths.

The ​Person-Centered Approach seeks to help induce change within an

individual in a nondirective way. In the Person-Centered approach, the counselor helps

the client in the change process through deliberately creating a soft, warm environment

which is facilitative of change. Such an environment makes it comfortable for a person

to explore their incongruence and to be confident enough to speak about it in a way that

can lead to self-actualizing behaviors. The three main qualities in this approach are

Empathy, Genuineness, and Unconditional Positive Regard. The latter can translate into

“Meeting the client where they are at.” Since my interview with Jennifer was audio only,
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I demonstrated these skills by listening, reflecting, and allowing for silence at

appropriate points in our conversation.

The skills of Motivational Interviewing and Person-Centered counseling go

hand-in-hand, because Person-Centered skills, such as empathy, genuineness, and

unconditional positive regard, are foundational skills that create the necessary

environment for change. Regardless of which interventions one attempts to carry out in

a counseling session, if there is no environment of rapport and understanding, and if the

client does not feel heard, valued, and supported by the counselor, then very little (if

any) change will be accomplished. The “environment of change” enables the counselor

to utilize the skills of OARS in a more effective way. The ease and comfort of feeling

heard allows people to express themselves and feel better about digging deep and

engaging in the process of self-exploration. Creating a facilitative environment also

allowed me to provide feedback to Jennifer in a way that she was receptive, and set us

up for questions of change, such as, scaling questions, and commitments to action.

The role play exercise and connecting the experience to real life situations is

what I think I needed to be able to make counseling theories real in my life. Role play

exercises are very interesting to me in the sense that they drum up real emotions and

process that can have a therapeutic effect, even though they are role plays. This

exercise was very helpful, and I am grateful to have worked with Jennifer on it.
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References

Miller, W. & Rollnick. S. (2002). Motivational Interviewing: Preparing People for

Change (2nded). New York, NY: The Guilford Press.

DiClemente, C. (2003). Addiction and change: how addictions develop and addicted

people recover. New York, NY: Guilford Press.

Cloninger, C. R., & Cloninger, K. M. (2011). Person-centered Therapeutics.

International journal of person centered medicine, 1(1), 43–52.

https://doi.org/10.5750/ijpcm.v1i1.21