Introduction to Counselling Skills

Text and Activities

Richard Nelson-Jones

• Publisher: SAGE Publications Ltd
• Year: 2012
• ISBN:
  9781446289631
• Edition: 4
• Topic: Psychology
• Subtopic: Psychotherapy Counselling
• Index: Psychology

From leading skills expert Richard Nelson-Jones, this bestselling book is the ideal companion for any trainer or trainee wanting to acquire and develop the counselling skills key to effective therapeutic relationships.

Using an easy to follow, three-stage model, this fourth edition provides the answers to those all important questions:

- what are counselling skills and why are they important?

- how can I become more skilled and put the skills I have learnt into practice?

- what skills will help me manage crises and work effectively with diversity, ethical issues and dilemmas?

- how can I help my client to develop their own self-helping skills and maintain change after the counselling relationship has terminated?

Accessible, practical and concise, this new edition is packed full of up-to-date case examples, more material on self-care and diversity, as well as a brand new chapter on "Using Technology in Counselling". This is the ideal text for introductory courses in counselling skills, counselling and other professional areas including health care, management, education and social work.

Richard Nelson-Jones has many years? experience as a counsellor, trainer and psychotherapist. His books have helped train thousands of counsellors and helpers worldwide. He is a Fellow of the British and Australian Psychological Societies and of the British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy.

INTRODUCTION

Part One consists of five introductory chapters. Chapter 1 answers the question of who are counsellors, psychotherapists and helpers. Chapters 2 and 3 introduce the notion that people possess communication skills and mind skills that can be for good or ill. In addition, time is spent describing feelings and physical reactions and stating why they are not skills. Chapters 4 and 5 focus on the three stages of the Relating–Understanding–Changing (RUC) counselling and helping process and on the importance of creating strong relationships with clients.

WHO ARE COUNSELLORS AND HELPERS?

CHAPTER OUTCOMES

By studying this chapter you should:

• understand some distinguishing features of professional counsellors and psychotherapists;
• gain an introduction to professional counselling and psychotherapy requirements;
• gain an appreciation of the variety of helpers who use counselling skills;
• know some of the differences between counsellors, psychotherapists and helpers; and
• understand five categories of goals for using counselling skills.

At the start of the twenty-first century the huge growth in counselling, psychotherapy and helping that gained momentum in the last half of the twentieth century continues, if not increases. Some of this growth is due to a greater recognition that much of how people communicate is learned and that consequently they can change to communicate better. This recognition includes a movement towards positive psychology, which emphasizes enhancing strengths as well as working with weaknesses (Harris, Thoreson and Lopez, 2007; Pointon, 2006; Seligman, 2002). Related to this trend, there has been an increase in coaching for the less disturbed (Liston-Smith et al., 2011). In addition, there has been an expansion of counselling and psychotherapy professional associations that regulate standards for practitioners. There has also been a rapid growth of training in counselling, psychotherapy and helping and increasing pressures for professionals to be suitably accredited. Hopefully, alongside these developments, there has been the use of better counselling skills by counsellors, psychotherapists and helpers.

There are seven main categories of people who either use or can use counselling skills.

• Professional counsellors and psychotherapists Specialists who are suitably trained, accredited and paid for their therapeutic services. Such people include counsellors, clinical and counselling psychologists and psychiatrists.
• Paraprofessional counsellors People trained in counselling skills who use them as part of their jobs, yet who do not hold an accredited counselling or psychotherapy qualification. Some social workers fall into this category, though others are qualified counsellors and psychotherapists.
• Voluntary counsellors People trained in counselling skills who work on a voluntary basis in settings such as Relate in the UK or Relationships Australia, youth counselling services, church-related agencies and numerous other voluntary agencies.
• Helpers using counselling skills as part of their jobs Here the main focus of the job may be nursing, teaching, preaching, supervising or managing and providing services such as finance, law, funerals, trade union work and so on. These jobs require people to use counselling skills some of the time if they are to be maximally effective.
• Peer helpers People who use counselling skills as part of peer helping or support networks of varying degrees of formality. Such peer support networks frequently cover areas of diversity such as culture, race, sexual orientation and support for women and for men.
• Informal helpers All of us have the opportunity to assist others, be it in roles such as partner, parent, relative, friend or work colleague.
• Counselling, psychotherapy and helping students Students using counselling skills on supervised placements as part of counselling, psychotherapy and helping courses.

Throughout this book the terms counsellor and helper and counselling skills are mainly used rather than psychotherapist and psychotherapy or therapeutic skills. Throughout the book the term client is used for the recipients of counselling skills.

WHO ARE COUNSELLORS AND PSYCHOTHERAPISTS?

Psychotherapy is derived from the Greek word therapeia meaning healing. Though there has been a lessening of this distinction, some years ago counsellors and psychotherapists were often perceived differently. Increasingly, counselling has come to be viewed as either the same as or similar to psychotherapy. However, because counselling and psychotherapy represent diverse rather than uniform knowledge and activities, it is more helpful to think that the terms mean counselling and psychotherapy approaches rather than a single entity.

Possibly, the terms psychotherapy and psychotherapist are more used than counselling and counsellor in medical settings. However, there is a blurring of this distinction, though most psychiatrists probably still view themselves as conducting psychotherapy rather than counselling. Psychotherapy is still a term used to discuss longer-term and deeper work with mental disorders, though this is not always the case; many psychologists and counsellors work in medical settings, have clients with recognized medical disorders and do longer-term and deep work. Furthermore, the distinction between people who have mental disorders as contrasted with problems of living is not clear-cut. Consequently, even in medical settings the term counselling may be just as appropriate as psychotherapy.

In Britain there has been a fairly recent development emphasizing the similarities between counselling and psychotherapy. In 2000, the British Association for Counselling changed its name to become the British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy (BACP). A prime reason for this was because many of its members already considered themselves as psychotherapists. In 1998 the Psychotherapy and Counselling Federation of Australia (PACFA) was established. Here, as well as commonalities, some differences between psychotherapists and counsellors are still acknowledged, though it remains to be seen how long PACFA continues to make such distinctions.

Many British and Australian counsellors and psychotherapists are neither members of BACP or PACFA. Some receive their qualifications in other professional associations such as those in counselling psychology, clinical psychology and psychiatry and consider this sufficient. Furthermore, in Britain, in addition to BACP there is the United Kingdom Council for Psychotherapy (UKCP), which has organizational members training people in psychotherapy. Example 1.1 illustrates different kinds of professional counsellors and psychotherapists.

What constitutes professional training as a counsellor or psychotherapist? Though subject to change, the following provides some idea of requirements. Courses recognized by BACP have a minimum of 400 hours staff/student contact time with, in addition, students undertaking a minimum of 100 hours of supervised counselling practice. Such courses can be of one year full-time or spread over two, three or four years part-time. Training offered by organizational members of UKCP is not normally shorter than four years part-time duration. Such training involves supervised clinical work and usually personal therapy in the model being taught.

In Australia, the PACFA 2009 Training Standards requires postgraduate courses run by its member associations to have 200 hours of training and 50 hours of supervision relating to 200 hours of client contact. PACFA requires undergraduate courses to have 350 hours of training plus 50 hours of supervision relating to 200 hours of client contact (PACFA, 2009). PACFA also requires those wishing to join its register as full members to have completed 750 hours of counselling post-training and 75 hours of supervision.

EXAMPLE 1.1 PROFESSIONAL COUNSELLORS AND PSYCHOTHERAPISTS

Joshua, 52, is an accredited counsellor who works alongside doctors in a medical practice. He counsels patients with problems such as excessive stress, managing pain and recovering from and preventing further heart attacks. Though much of his work is individual, when necessary Joshua works with couples and families. In addition, Joshua conducts a small private practice.

Rupa, 32, is a psychologist in the central office of a large bank. Much of the time she is helping individuals to perform better and to manage setbacks and disappointments in their work and outside lives. Some of Rupa’s time is spent in training staff groups in work-related skills, such as customer relations and interviewing those requesting loans. In addition, Rupa advises management on personnel policies and procedures.

Alfie, 27, is a counselling psychologist in a university counselling centre. Though most clients are undergraduate and postgraduate students, he also has a few who are academic and non-academic staff members. Much of Alfie’s caseload consists of working for no more than three or four sessions with clients presenting with work-connected problems. Alfie also leads groups for students in such areas as assertiveness skills, study skills and relationship skills. In addition, Alfie conducts a small private practice consisting of members of the general public.

Lily, 35, is an accredited psychotherapist in private practice. Her caseload is a mixture of children and adults who visit her in her consulting rooms. Lily does a mixture of individual, couples, family and group work.

Evie, 48, is a trained and accredited marriage and family counsellor. She works mainly for the local branch of a national relationship counselling agency where she counsels individual partners, couples and, where appropriate, other family members. In addition, Evie conducts a private practice specializing in relationship concerns.

Regarding professional counsellors and therapists, two further points are worthy of mention. First, a number of people, such as some social workers and nurses, combine professional qualifications in their primary role with professional qualifications in counselling and psychotherapy. Second, completion of an approved course of counselling and psychotherapy training can no longer be equated with accreditation, since increasingly professional counsellors and psychotherapists are required to undertake mandatory continuing professional development (CPD) requirements by their professional associations.

WHO ARE HELPERS?

Sometimes, the term helper is used as a generic term to cover all those engaged in using counselling and helping skills, be they counselling and psychotherapy professionals or otherwise. However, increasingly the professionalization of counselling and psychotherapy makes such usage inaccurate. Here the term ‘helper’ is used in a more restricted sense to include all those people who offer counselling skills to other people, yet who are not qualified and accredited counsellors, psychotherapists or their equivalent. This introductory book is highly relevant to all such people in addition to those training to become professional counsellors and therapists.

Paraprofessional counsellors are trained in counselling skills, but at a level that falls short of professional counselling or psychotherapy accreditation. For example, some nurses have attended a number of counselling courses and may be skilled at dealing with the problems of specific categories of patients. People with such backgrounds might be called counsellors in their work settings, for example nurse counsellors. Alternatively, they might remain being called nurses. However, if the term ‘counsellor’ in a given context is limited only to those with recognized specialist professional qualifications and accreditation in the area, nurses doing paraprofessional counselling should be categorized as helpers, despite the quality of their skills.

Example 1.2 illustrates helpers who are using cou...