What I learnt about
The class formed small groups and discussed their views on what makes a good counsellor and what good counselling skills are.
What I understood by it
There are listening skills, counselling skills and counselling itself.
The basis is good listening skills, that is to suspend your own thoughts and feelings that may arise, acknowledge you are listening by nodding etc, making your responses specific o the subject, avoiding diagnosing, reflecting back what was said and summarizing.
Added to the listening skills are active listening, which is ’’ hearing without judging and not suggesting quick answers’’, reflecting what was said and the meaning, paraphrasing feelings to show understanding, summarizing content and affect and asking open and closed questions as appropriate.
Counselling is the intentional use of a relationship to help and support a concerned person to decide their own solutions to problems, ensures they feel accepted and able to talk freely and helps them to understand thoughts and feelings and work through issues before taking action.
Then, when the user of the listening and counselling skills and the recipient (client) explicitly agree to enter into a counselling relationship does it become ‘’counselling’’ rather than the use of counselling skills.
BACP indentify ‘’ethical’’ qualities with which or under which a counsellor should abide and work with. These are as follows:
Empathy: the fundamental quality according to Carl Rogers. The ability to communicate understanding of another’s experience from that persons perspective.
Sincerity: a personal commitment to consistency between what is professed and what is done.
Integrity: commitment to being moral in dealings with others, personal straightforwardness, honesty and