CONTENT

ON
STEPS AND TECHNIQUES OF
COUNSELLING

Submitted to,

Madam Manika Mazumder

Reader

College of Nursing, Medical College and Hospital, Kolkata

Submitted by,

Mouli Bhattacharjee

M.Sc. Nursing 1st Year

College of Nursing, Medical College and Hospital, Kolkata

Introduction
Counselling typically helps bring about change. The process begins with exploring the
challenges a client faces before assisting them in resolving developmental and situational
difficulties.

Techniques of counselling process

1. Personal Preparation of Counsellor

• Self-awareness: Counsellor should be aware of self- prejudice, biases, feelings,

values, motivation, personal strength and weakness. He should not have influence of
these factors on the counselling process.

• Physical appearance: The physical appearance of counsellor is very important for

successful counselling

• Psychological health: Stable state of psychological health is required to be a good

counsellor. A counsellor should be mentally healthy in all the aspects, aware of one's
limitation, flexibility and adaptability should be present in his behaviour.

• Sensitivity: A person who is aware of resources, limitations and vulnerability of other

persons as well as is keen observant to other person's feelings and needs is considered
to have sensitivity.

• Open mindedness: Counsellor should prepare himself to accept the ideas or

information openly from counselee without imposing any judgment and influence of
own personal values.

• Trust-worthiness: A counsellor should be reliable, honest and maintain

confidentiality of the information.

• Approachability: Counsellor should be approachable. He should be friendly, pleasant

and can be approached without a feeling of apprehension.

2. Physical Setting

Counselling can occur almost anywhere but comfortable physical settings promote the
process better than others. Some of the physical conditions involved in counselling as
mentioned by Benafamin and Snertzer are:
 • The environment should be calm, quite, comfortable, soothing and aesthetic. There
should not be distracting stimuli which can disturb the process of counselling (switch
off mobile phones, cut off the phone lines).

• There should not be a table (desk) between counsellor and counselee as it can create
barrier in the development of trustworthy and close relationship. If require, a desk
can be placed at the side of the counsellor to place tissue paper.

• The distance of sitting between counsellor and counselee can have significant effect
in the development of rapport. The distance should not be so close and so far but it
should be maintained at the comfort level of the counselee which is determined by
some variables such as cultural background, gender, age, etc. Distance of thirty to
thirty-nine inches has been found to be the average range of comfort between
counsellor and client of both genders (Haase, 1970).

• The chairs for counsellor and the counselee should be placed at right angle as it
facilitates the counselee to either look at the counsellor or straight ahead.

• Place 'do not disturb’ sign, on the door to prevent others from entering when the
counselling is on progress.

• Assure auditory and visual privacy to the client as per the professional codes of
ethics.

Steps of counselling process

Counselling is a systemic process and takes place in accordance with the nature of the person
being helped. The process passes through different steps which are as follows,

Eshtablish
termination
trustworthy assessment setting goals interventions
& follow-up
relationship
Establish trustworthy relationship
One should recognize that each counselee-counsellor - relationship is unique. Establishment
of trustworthy relationship with counselee is vital without which the process of counselling
cannot be initiated successfully. Factors such as respect, trust and sense of psychological
comfort should be considered while initiating the process of counselling.
Following skills are required to establish trustworthy relationship with the counselee:
• Begin the phase with adequate social skills
• Introduce yourself
• Listen attentively
• Always address the individual by his or her name
• Ensure physical comfort
• Do not interrupt the counselee while she/he is talking
• Observe nonverbal communication
• It may require series of sessions before counselee becomes comfortable with the
counsellor.

Assessment
This is the step in which counselee explores his feelings problems and concerned area.
Counsellor encourages the counselee to express his perspective toward the problem situation
and the emotional upsets experienced by him- Counsellor should help the counselee to put
their concern into words whenever, he is facing difficulty in doing so. Th role of the
counsellor in this phase is to develop an outlook of the problem so that possible interventions
can be generated. Several specific skills are required for effective assessments which are as
following:
• Active listening: find out the client's agenda
• Paraphrase, summarize, reflect, interpret
• Focus on feelings, not events
• Keen observation
• Making intelligent guesses
• Systematic and prompt recording of information.

Setting goals
Counsellor and counselee work together to set immediate and ultimate goals based on the
data collected in assessment phase. Problem statements are transformed into goal statements.
Goal setting helps the counsellor to know how well counselling is working. The process of
setting goals is cooperatively done by the counsellor and the counselee. However, it should
be realized that goals are not fixed and can be changed whenever new information is
received.
It requires:
 • The skills of drawing inference and differentiation.
• Teach individual to think realistically.

Intervention
The intervention will depend upon the approach of counselling used by the counsellor, the
problem and the counselee. The choice of the intervention is in fact a process of adaptation
and the counsellor should be prepared to change the intervention when the selected
intervention is not working.

Termination and follow-up

Counsellor summarizes what has occurred, clarify, and get verification from the counselee.
Termination of the counselling session is done without destroying the accomplishment gained
and with due sensitivity. Counsellor may plan to get feedback and follow-up appointment
with counselee at regular intervals, if required. As a counsellor one should keep in mind that
first session is the last session.

Conclusion
A growing trend in the field of counselling is the focus on prevention instead of remediation.
There is now a shift for counsellors to intercede prior to any incidents and to become more
proactive in developing wide prevention plans. In order to achieve this, it is very crucial to
acquire the prerequisites of counselling process.
Bibliography:
• Sodhi J K. Comprehensive Textbook of Nursing Education. 2nd Edition. New Delhi.
Jaypee Brothers Medical Publishers (P) Ltd. 2022; 380-390
• Sharma S K, Sharma R. Communication and Educational Technology in Nursing. 1 st
Edition. New Delhi. Elsevier. 2013. 132-144.