SWP 104

SW Counseling
January 3, 2022
SW Counseling
<the provision of assistance and guidance in resolving personal, social,
or psychological problems and difficulties, esp by a professional
< professional guidance in resolving personal conflicts and emotional
problems
Professional guidance of the individual by utilizing psychological
method esp in collecting case history data, using various techniques of
personal interview and testing interests and aptitudes to help clients
deal with problems and make important decisions
Counseling

<other words: assisting, briefing, coaching, direction,

instruction, mentoring, priming, prompting teaching, tutoring
< guidance or recommendations concerning prudent future
actions, typically given by someone regarded as
knowledgeable authoritative.
< an opinion that someone offers you about what you should
do or how you should act in a particular situation;
Counseling

<one of the most misused techniques of workers;

based on real or pretended knowledge or experience
and wisdom; actually they are activities used much too
freely with very poor timing and without valid
assessment of the client’s capacity to hear or use them;
often used to meet worker’s own needs to be experts.
Counseling

< despite these problems counseling is a valid technique

and widely used and can be effective; workers must be
sensitive to the clues client give that indicate they need
advice situation and direct suggestion; to be most
effective it should be based on knowledge, objective
analysis of the situation and judgment of the client’s
capacity to accept counseling,
Counseling
< the success or failure of advice giving and counseling depends on
client’s capacity to use it and the worker’s ability to make valid
assessment of this capacity.
< clients are most frequently able to use advice and counseling
successfully in these situations:
● In crisis situations, when their own ability to deal with the problem
is inadequate, and they are suffering anxiety, pain, fear, and other
presing emotions
SItuations where a client is able to use counseling successfully

● When they have a well-founded confidence in and

respect for the giver of the advice, either as a person, or
as a representative of a particularly responsible group,
such as SWs, ministers, doctors, lawyers supervisors.
● When their cultural conditioning or life situation is such
that they tend to depend on others rather than on
themselves for direction and solution
Situations when clients are able to use counseling successfully

● When the advice is given in such a way that the client’s integrity
and right to be self-determining are respected, and it jibes with
their needs and wants (agree or be in accord);
● When circumstances are such that they have no alternative.
< advice is most helpful when it deals with the means to achieve
ends rather than with the ends themselves.. client: “I don’t need
her to tell me what’s wrong..I know things are wrong. What I want
her to tell me is how to go about setting things right”.
Definitions

<Code of Ethics, according to NASW, the explication of the values, rules, and
principles of ethical conduct that apply to all SWs who are members of the NASW
< Confidentiality-the right of the client not to have private information shared with
third party
_Crisis- an internal experience of emotional change and distress; a social event in
which a disastrous event disrupt some essential functions of existing social
institutions
Crisis intervention- the therapeutic practice used in helping clients in crisis to
promote effective coping that can lead to positive growth and change
Basic Interpersonal Skills
● Talking-using speech, language and body
language
● Listening-hearing, observing, encouraging and
remembering;
● Active listening- combining talking and
listening to promote understanding
Purposes of careful listening
< a real gesture of love; conveys respect, demonstrates you value them and
you are interested in what they have to say; Purposes:
●Enables you to gather information needed for assessment and planning;
●Helps clients to feel better, reduces anxiety and reinforces personal safety,
well-being and encouraging greater hope and optimism;
●Encourages clients to express themselves fully and freely;
●Enhances your value to clients
●Contributes significantly to positive change in client’s self-understanding, self-
efficcacy, problem-solving and goal seeking capacities
Therapeutic Modalities outlined as Counseling skills
● Resilience- a sense of self-esteem and confidence; a belief in own
self-efficacy and ability to deal with change and adaptation and a
repertoire (collection) of social problem-solving approaches-to enable
service users to make choices or have a greater social participation
● Self-haven-a place or person who is familiar enough to offer a degree
of safety and security when anxieties are running extremely high as a
result of an external event or transition or crisis; this could be a
person who is responsive in some way and offer some degree of
containment at a period of high distress;not necessarily safe or
secure in reality and only temporary
 Therapeutic Modalities (4)
● Secure Base-differs from safe-haven in that it develops over time-
refers to an individual who offers a degree of consistency,
reliability and responsiveness to another so that the ;atter comes
to believe and expect that person to be available in times of
difficulty; with a sure base, the client can tolerate separation,
knowing that the person acting as a base will be available when
required to provide comfort and soothing presence;with the
separation, client is free to explore life and develop own
competence and skill, confidence in their life skills. Secure base
is internalized. SW may act as a temporary secure base
Therapeutic Modalities as counseling skills (4)

● Listening and Attending-to client’s verbal and non-verbal

communication requires that these skills are established before more
technical therapeutic techniques are incorporated into practice;
attending skills include listening to what is not explicitly said and what
is; it is the tone, inflection, lapses, and hesitations that provide clues
to what is being signified and what my be outside or at the margin of
the discourse; can assist us with pacing our interventions and
judgments on what clients can manage that ill allow them to
contemplate change
 Critical Thinking Skills

● Base their actions on sound professional

decisions and judgments
● Evaluate the effects of their decisions, judgments
and actions
● Reconsider and revise judgments and actions
based on relevant , valid, reliable and useful
information.
 Therapeutic Modalities (4)
● Listening and Attending skills-to client’s verbal and non-
verbal communication requires that these skills are
established before more technical therapeutic techniques
are incorporated into practice; includes listening to what
is not explicitly said, and what is; the tone of voice,
inflection, lapses, and hesitations provide clues to what is
being signified; these can assist us with padding our
interventions and judgment that will allow client to
contemplate change.
Stages of Change:Transtheoretical Model

<model of change based on periods of research-considers motivation to be the

most important factor when measuring the likelihood of sustained changes over
time; outlines the distinct stages of change before an alternative behavior is
sufficiently reinforced that it replaces the clients previously unhelpful behavior:
● Precontemplation-not seeing a problem
● Contemplation-seeing a problem and considering when to act
● Preparation- making concrete plans to act soon
● Action-doing something to change
● Maintenance-working to maintain the change
The need for Critical thinking skills:
● Thoughtful reflection and analysis are necessary throughout all
phases, aspects and forms of professional work; Particularly
because social workers address “unstructured” issues that do
not have easy right or wrong, true or false, or multiple choice
solutions<S needs to be adept at critical thinking skills;
● SWP is complex, multidimensional, multisystemic and certainly
challenging; those who do not think critically represent a
genuine risk to themselves, their clients and their colleague
Critical thinking Skills
● Identify and frame the nature of issues accurately
● Formulate useful, relevant and appropriate questions to guide
data collection
● Collect relevant, valid, reliable and useful information
● Select or formulate relevant,valid reliable and useful thinking
processes by which to reach decisions or make judgments
based on relevant valid reliable and useful information
● Use relevant, valid, reliable and useful thinking processes to
reach and support professional decisions and judgments
Crisis

Crisis a term used by SW: an internal experience

of emotional change and distress; a social event in
which a disastrous event disrupts some essential
functions of existing social institutions.
Crisis intervention-the therapeutic practice used in
helping clients in crisis to promote effective coping
that can lead to positive growth and change
The need to learn, unlearn and relearn:
Total knowledge in the world on the average doubles about every 7
years; As a SW, you might wonder how much of what you now
believe to be true is actually false; we may reasonably anticipate
that more and more of what you now know will become less and
less relevant, valid, reliable and applicable with each passing year.
Unless you as a SW continuously and aggressively pursue
additional learning you will inexorably (inevitably) fall further behind
the knowledge curve; clients could suffer because of your
ignorance; up-to-date. Valid and reliable knowledge and expertise is
vital so you can serve clients effectively.
 Four categories of non-specific factors associated with Client outcomes and
psychotherapy

● Client and situational factors: strengths, assets, resources,

challenges, and limitations w/in the client(extratherapeutic
factors) )most powerful impact on client outcome
● Relationship factors: qualities of the helper and the resulting
relationship between client and helper- 2nd most significant impact
● Expectancy factor-hopefulness, optimism, and expectations that the
helping encounter will be beneficial to outcome;
● Model and technique factor-the models, techniques, strategies and
protocols adopted in the helping process alo affect outcomes.
Skin color and ethnicity
< in counseling a culturally different client, the worker
may unwittingly engage in cultural oppression; i.e the
unconscious imposition of mainstream cultural values on
the client; to view multicultural counseling w/o giving
recognition to the societal context for experience is to
dilute the profound impact of racial barriers to inclusion
at every level, as a result of oppression.
Racism

<the basis for racism continuing to hold power is the historically established
assumption of inferiority for minority groups.
< “PCS” model of discrimination: pesonal, cultural, srtructure
< when using counseling skills, if we neglect to explore the context in which
communications are made, esp. Int he context of a service user who
occupies a less advantageous social position than ourselves, we have the
responsibility to carefully consider the meaning of communications, explore
with service user what they intend to communicate to us thereby building a
trusting working relationship.
Multicultural Frameworks for using Counseling skills in SWP

< Key concepts:

● Unequal society as context
● Cultural, institutional and personal oppression
● GRRAACCESS
● Ideographic Framework for Practice
< Context-the time,place and situation in which the communication
takes place; it does not only affect perception but also determines the
content of the message sent and received
Common errors SWs make in talking and listening

● Interacting in a patronizing or condescending way ( talk down,

humiliate)
● Interrogate rather than interviewing by asking questions in rapid
staccato clipped fashion;
● Focusing on themselves; (formulating questions before
understanding other’s message;
● Attending predominantly to a single dimension of a person’s
experience (just thoughts or just feelings, only the personal or the
situational, only the negative or only the positive’
Common errors SWs make in talking and listening

● Interrupting frequently with a comment or question;

● Failing to listen or remember or selectively listening with an “agenda”
so that messages are interpreted to match their own beliefs and
opinions;
● Neglecting to use a person’s name, mispronouncing and changing it
*Catherine to Cathy, Joseph to Joe) assuming formality or informality
that does not match that of the client; “Mr. Jones when he prefers to
be called Bill” or Jane when she prefers to be called Mrs Smith.
Common errors SWs make in talking and listening

● Neglecting to consider the cultural meaning of the interview for a

particular person or family;
● Failing to demonstrate understanding through active listening
● Using terms that stereotype people or groups (label, typecast)
● Offering suggestions and proposing solutions too early in the
process on the basis of incomplete or inaccurate understanding
of the person-issue-situation
Common errors SWs make in talking and listening

● Making statements in absolute terms ( always,

never, all, none)
● Disclosing one’s own personal feelings and
opinions or sharing life experiences prematurely
● Confronting or challenging a person before
establishing understanding and a solid relationship