To become an effective beginning counsellor one must have the ability to reflect on their own counseling style and understand the implications their personal counseling style has on the counsellor/client relationships. Microskills are the foundation for counselling, they are the communication skills used to provide precise alternatives for a diverse range of clients, allowing counsellors to predict how a client is going to respond to a counsellors intervention (Ivey, Ivey & Zalaquett, 2014). There are five microskills that are essential to counselling; attending behaviour and empathy, questioning, encouraging, paraphrasing and summarising and reflection of feelings (Ivey, Ivey & Zalaquett, 2014). This essay will reflect on 5 interviews I performed
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When initially speaking about the client’s mother I noted the client appeared irritated, broke eye contact, responded with short answers and began to pick at their finger nail with tooth. These reactions to the topic of their mother guided me to realise this was a key issue for the client and allowed me to pay close attention and be empathetic when speaking about this. Another microskill I feel that I used effectively was questioning. Questions help a session begin and move along smoothly, they assist in pin pointing and clarifying issues and open up new areas for discussion which also aids in clients’ self exploration (Ivey, Ivey & Zalaquett, 2014, p118). After reviewing the questioning feedback form, I found that I was asking more open questioning rather than closed, this is because open questions allow the client to talk more freely and they provide the counsellor with greater amounts of information. I believe I used my questioning skills to the best of my ability, this subject has allowed me to extend on my counselling skills which were first brought to my attention in another subject I have completed, Interpersonal Skills. I have used questioning skills in many parts of my life since undertaking these two subjects, often resolving conflict between children at work. WRITE IN HERE ABOUT PROMOTING STRENGTHS IF YOU HAVE ENOUGH WORDS. Although I felt I used these microskills to the best of my ability, after reflection I was able …show more content…
I feel I was able to encourage the client by using active listening skills with are apart of the attending behaviour microskill. I used both verbal and non-verbal gestures such as head nods, saying the word yes when the client was explaining things and repeating key word/s the client used, this was to show the client I understood what they were saying and where they were coming from. Although I believe my active listening skills were used correctly, I identified from the feedback form that I scantily used paraphrasing and summarising. By lacking in these two important microskills I was unable to provide clarification of a topic or summarise the session successfully. Paraphrasing and summarising are combined with reflecting feeling, although reflecting feeling involves observing emotions, naming them and repeating them back to the client (Ivey, Ivey & Zalaquett, 2014, p161). I touched on this microskills infrequently, I was councious of the importance of reflecting feeling although it did not come naturally to me and found myself focusing more on the context rather than the feeling the context evoked. I understand the importance of reflective listening when becoming an effective counsellor and after identifying my lack of feeling reflection, it will be something I am able to work on. Not only do counsellors bring their own microskills to a counselling session, they also being their values and biases, these views and biases
When initially speaking about the client’s mother I noted the client appeared irritated, broke eye contact, responded with short answers and began to pick at their finger nail with tooth. These reactions to the topic of their mother guided me to realise this was a key issue for the client and allowed me to pay close attention and be empathetic when speaking about this. Another microskill I feel that I used effectively was questioning. Questions help a session begin and move along smoothly, they assist in pin pointing and clarifying issues and open up new areas for discussion which also aids in clients’ self exploration (Ivey, Ivey & Zalaquett, 2014, p118). After reviewing the questioning feedback form, I found that I was asking more open questioning rather than closed, this is because open questions allow the client to talk more freely and they provide the counsellor with greater amounts of information. I believe I used my questioning skills to the best of my ability, this subject has allowed me to extend on my counselling skills which were first brought to my attention in another subject I have completed, Interpersonal Skills. I have used questioning skills in many parts of my life since undertaking these two subjects, often resolving conflict between children at work. WRITE IN HERE ABOUT PROMOTING STRENGTHS IF YOU HAVE ENOUGH WORDS. Although I felt I used these microskills to the best of my ability, after reflection I was able …show more content…
I feel I was able to encourage the client by using active listening skills with are apart of the attending behaviour microskill. I used both verbal and non-verbal gestures such as head nods, saying the word yes when the client was explaining things and repeating key word/s the client used, this was to show the client I understood what they were saying and where they were coming from. Although I believe my active listening skills were used correctly, I identified from the feedback form that I scantily used paraphrasing and summarising. By lacking in these two important microskills I was unable to provide clarification of a topic or summarise the session successfully. Paraphrasing and summarising are combined with reflecting feeling, although reflecting feeling involves observing emotions, naming them and repeating them back to the client (Ivey, Ivey & Zalaquett, 2014, p161). I touched on this microskills infrequently, I was councious of the importance of reflecting feeling although it did not come naturally to me and found myself focusing more on the context rather than the feeling the context evoked. I understand the importance of reflective listening when becoming an effective counsellor and after identifying my lack of feeling reflection, it will be something I am able to work on. Not only do counsellors bring their own microskills to a counselling session, they also being their values and biases, these views and biases