Fundamental Counseling Skills Presentation

Fundamental Counseling Skills Paper

Each member of the group should write a brief paper addressing the following points:  Discuss your understanding of any 5 fundamental counseling skills and their role in effective counseling.  If you were observing a counseling interaction, how would you know whether the skills were being used effectively or ineffectively?  What are common difficulties when learning to use those counseling skills effectively?

This assignment asks you to think about how skills you are reading about can play out in counseling sessions. Fundamental skills are basic building blocks of counseling, and important to effective and intentional counseling. There is also evidence that there are some common difficulties when learning counseling skills. I also hope you will begin thinking of counseling as an interaction, and build your skills for observing and monitoring that interaction. Hill and O’Brien (1999) point out that there is not one “right” response in counseling. Typically there are many responses that could be used, and counselors need to learn about their choices, and then monitor the interaction to decide whether a response was effective.

Guidelines  Use the Verbal Response Modes in G&F Chapter 9 (& see resources, below); select at least 1 minimal encourager or directive, 1 information gathering, and 3 complex skills *  Think about the interaction, not just one counselor response, and one client response. To help you with this, look at pp. 280-282 in G&F Chapter 9 and Hill and O’Brien (1999) Chapter 3, particularly the diagram on p. 32 and pp. 37-41  G&F Chapter 9, Verbal Behavior (pp. 268-282) discusses positive effects of counseling skills as well as difficulties and ineffective uses.  Hill and O’Brien (1999) have Chapters on different counseling skills, which discuss positive effects of counseling skills as well as difficulties and ineffective uses (each Chapter has a section “Difficulties helpers experience with skill”)  Hill and O’Brien (1999) Appendix B has examples of counseling skills and client responses (positive and negative) that may help you

Resources Hill, C. E., & O’Brien, K. M. (1999). Helping skills: Faciltating exploration, insight, and action. Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.  on reserve at Information Sciences Library (ISB)  Chapter 3, Process of Helping is also at the Union Copy Center  Form E: Helping Skills System; Form D: Helper Intention List http://forms.apa.org/Books/hill/students/webforms.cfm  Practice Exercises http://forms.apa.org/Books/hill/students/practice.cfm

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