BASIC COUNSELING

SKILLS
Prepared by: reenaroseabonales
BASIC COUNSELING SKILLS

1. Listening
 a. attending – orienting oneself to the client
to indicate awareness to the patient and that
the client has your full, undivided attention and
that you care
 - methods include looking to
the client’s face or eyes, nodding to encourage
the flow of communication, and leaning forward
b. listening and observing – capturing and
understanding the verbal and non-verbal
information communicated by the patient
HINDRANCES TO EFFECTIVE COMMUNICATION

 Giving advice
 Offering solutions
 Moralizing and preaching
 Analyzing and diagnosing
 Judging and criticizing
 Praising and agreeing; always giving positive
evaluation
 Reassuring
LEADS AND RESPONSES

1. Acceptance – “Uh-uh”, “I see”. To show

that one is one with the client
2. Restatement – “You want to…” This is an
exact repetition of important client
statements
3. Clarification – “This is what I hear you
saying ... am I right?” it can be
paraphrase too.
4. Summarization – “So far, these are the
things you have said…” This is the summary
of the discussion.
5. General leads – “Would you like to explain
that further?” This is an invitation to say
more.
6. Reassurance – “So far you are doing very
well.” This is confined to thoughts/acts that
are safe.
7. Interpretation – “You feel… because” this is
similar to emphatic communication.
8. Supposition – “Supposing you did… what do
you think would happen?” This is a light
suggestion with consequences explored.
9. Facilitation – “The course of action you are
thinking of requires…” This is information-
giving to explain what something means or
requires.
10. Interpellation – “How long has this
problem existed?”, “How often does this
occur?”, “What is the extent to which it
affects…?” This is to establish the frequency,
intensity and duration of the problem.
11. Rejection – “What are you saying seems to
be unsupported by this…” This is a rejection
of a claim made, based on tangible
evidences.
2. Empathy – the ability to perceive anothers’
experience and then to communicate back to
the individual
3. Genuineness – ability of the counselor to be
freely themselves. Includes congruence
between outer words/behaviors and inner
feelings; non-role-playing and being
unpretentious.
4. Unconditional Positive Regard – an expression
of caring and nurturance as well as acceptance
- includes conveying warm thought
- conveying acceptance by responding to the
client with nonjudgmental or noncritical
reactions
 - respect or the ability to communicate with
sincere belief that the client possesses the
inherent strength and capacity to make it life,
and that each person has the right to choose
his own alternatives and make his own
decisions
5. Concreteness – keeping communications
specific, focused on facts and feelings of
relevant concerns, while avoiding tangents,
generalizations, abstract discussions, or talking
about counselor rather than the client.
6. Open questions – questioning process to
assist the client in clarifying or exploring
thoughts of feelings.
- questions should have a
therapeutic intention or purpose
- avoid asking too many
questions or assuming an interrogatory role
- follow a response to an open-
ended question
7. Counselor Self-Disclosure – self-disclosure is
not encouraged unless there is a pressing need
clinical need which cannot be met in any other
way and the content is intended to help the
client
8. Interpretation – counselors interpretation will
provide new meaning, reason or explanation for
behaviors, thoughts or feelings so that clients
see problems in a new way
- can help client make
connections and offer new framework of
understanding
- help client focus on specific
aspect of their problem or provide goal