Counselling in a Nutshell

Windy Dryden

• Publisher: SAGE Publications Ltd
• Year: 2010
• Print ISBN: 9780857021151, 9780857021144
• eBook ISBN: 9781446241936
• Edition: 2
• Topic: Psychology
• Subtopic: Psychotherapy
• Index: Psychology

What is counselling and how does it work? Counselling in a Nutshell provides the answers to these questions and more, as part of a step-by-step guide to the counselling relationship and the therapeutic process.

Drawing together theory from the psychodynamic, person-centred and cognitive-behavioural approaches, Windy Dryden explores:

- bonds between counsellor and client

- goals and tasks of counselling

- stages of the therapeutic process

- core therapeutic change.

This revised and updated second edition also includes new material on person centred and psychodynamic counselling, further discussion of the influence of counselling contexts on the work of counsellors, and five discussion issues at the end of each chapter to stimulate thinking.

Counselling in a Nutshell provides a concise introduction to core components of the therapeutic relationship and process and is suitable for counsellors of all orientations.

ONE

The Components of Counselling in a Nutshell

Counselling is a word that is much used, but as an activity it is much misunderstood. If I am going to present counselling in a nutshell, it is important that I make quite clear what I think counselling is and important that you understand how I am using the term. I am not going to offer you a formal definition of counselling, although I will presently discuss the current definition of counselling offered by the British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy (BACP). What I will do is to outline the main components of counselling. Since this book is devoted to presenting counselling in a nutshell as it pertains to working with individuals (as I mentioned in the Preface), the components that I will outline and discuss in this chapter should be read as applying to individual counselling. My task is made more difficult since I will be endeavouring to present ideas that are broadly acceptable to adherents of the three main counselling approaches – psychodynamic, person-centred and cognitive-behavioural – as well as to those who consider themselves to be eclectic or integrative practitioners (that is, those who do not consider themselves to be adherents of any one counselling approach, but who draw upon different approaches in their work).

Please bear in mind as I write that I am referring to the ideal. Sadly, as is well documented, counselling does not always have helpful outcomes for clients and, just as sadly, counsellors do not always act in the best interests of their clients.

The components of counselling

In this chapter I will briefly outline some of the most important components of counselling. Let us begin by looking at the person who is adopting the role of counsellor, namely, you.

The counsellor

When you adopt the role of counsellor, you bring to counselling a number of ingredients. I will briefly discuss these ingredients one at a time.

A communicated genuine desire to be helpful to clients

Without a genuine desire to help your clients, you will just be going through the motions and this will probably be sensed by clients. As such, this genuine desire to be helpful needs to be both communicated by you, as counsellor, and experienced by your clients. If you are a trainee and your major motivation for seeing clients is to practise your counselling skills, or to get the required ‘hours’ to fulfil your course requirements, then again you will probably communicate this at some level and it will be picked up by your clients with less than satisfactory results.

A demonstrated acceptance and respect for clients

Your attitude towards your clients will have a marked effect on your counselling work. If you accept and respect them and this is experienced by them, then this will encourage them to trust you and open up to you. However, if you demonstrate a negative attitude towards them by not accepting them or even disrespecting them, then counselling will, in all probability, stall.

An ability to listen to and understand clients’ psychological pain from their perspective

While a genuine desire to help clients is a central building block for counselling, this desire will count for little if you are not able to listen to and understand what your clients have to say to you from their point of view. The ability to listen to clients is a fundamental quality. It involves creating an environment in which clients feel safe enough to disclose their personal pain to you. This is dependent upon your doing a number of things, including: keeping relatively quiet while clients talk, intervening only to encourage them to continue their exploration; demonstrating non-verbally a keen interest in what they are saying; and communicating a non-judgemental, accepting attitude.

While listening is a key quality, its therapeutic power is enhanced when it is used in the service of understanding your clients from their point of view. In To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee (1960) Atticus Finch says: ‘You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view – until you climb inside of his skin and walk around in it.’ Fortunately, you will not be called upon to do this literally in counselling, but being a counsellor will require you to view the world through your client’s eyes as if you were inside his or her skin and walking around in it. As we will see in Chapter 2, this ‘as if’ quality is important. Unless you understand your clients from their perspective you will not be able to convey this understanding to them and they will not feel understood, and when clients do not feel understood the success of counselling is severely compromised.

Excellent therapeutic communication skills

You may be able to understand what your clients say to you, but this ability will not count for much if you do not succeed in conveying this understanding to them. Communicating empathic understanding to clients is a crucial skill and one that is recognised by all forms of counselling. However, there are other important therapeutic communication skills, some of which are emphasised more in certain approaches than in others. For example, in psychodynamic counselling making interpretations is a key therapeutic communication skill, particularly with clients whose problems are rooted in past conflicts and who have developmental deficits (Howard, 2010). Where clients’ problems are rooted in conflicts, the assumption is made that such clients have a sufficiently functioning ego and can thus be helped to understand the connection between their present and past feelings, thinking and behaviour and how these are linked to certain unresolved conflicts in their life or internal world.

However, when problems involve deficits, such clients are deemed not to have a functioning ego and thus the purpose of such interpretations is to help the person become aware of certain aspects of their experience that they do not find it easy to identify, such as feelings and thoughts (Howard, personal communication). This helps the ego development of such clients. Communicating all this needs to be done skilfully if clients are to make use of such understanding, and issues of timing, the amount of information given, and the language used are all important skill considerations. Because good therapeutic communication is a skill, being able to learn, practise and get feedback on these skills should be a central feature of counsellor training courses.

Training that is sufficient to help the clients you are asked to see

As a counsellor, you will need to be trained. You may have a very therapeutic personality and your heart may be in the right place, but you will still have to be trained to acquire the knowledge, skills and professional discipline required to put your talent and desire to be helpful to best use. I am often asked how much training a person needs to have to be a counsellor. If you are on a professional training course, then this will have been laid down for you by one of the professional training bodies that exist in Britain today. However, if you are not training professionally and you are counselling clients in the voluntary sector, then you will need to receive sufficient training to enable you to do the work effectively and safely.

Your personal strengths and weaknesses

When I was trained as a Samaritan many years ago, we were told to leave ourselves outside the door when we came on duty. This is not the case with counselling. The three major traditions in counselling all recognise that counselling is a personal encounter between counsellor and client, although each has a different idea about the nature of that personal encounter, as we shall soon see (Chapter 2). Given the fact that counselling is a personal encounter, albeit one where the focus is on the well-being of one of the participants, it is important to consider what you bring to the encounter as a person. Although you are in the role of counsellor, your behaviour in that role is influenced for better or worse by your own personal strengths and weaknesses. This is why most approaches to counselling require their practitioners to be involved in personal therapy or personal development work so that they can monitor the impact of their personal contribution to the counselling process.

The client

Your clients also bring to counselling a number of ingredients. I will briefly discuss these ingredients, again one at a time.

Personal pain

In most cases, your clients will be seeking counselling because they are in some degree of personal pain. This pain may be focused on and reactive to a given life adversity (such as a bereavement or being made redundant) or it may be enduring and more pervasive (for example, chronic low self-esteem). In a small number of cases, your clients will not be in pain, but rather they may be seeking counselling for some other reason, for example as a course requirement or out of interest. In my view, these are still legitimate reasons for seeking counselling and, in such cases, it often transpires that these people are in personal pain, but are not explicit about this at the outset.

In the 1960s and 1970s (a decade when I began my career as a counsellor), counselling was more likely to be sought by people who were not in personal pain, but who wanted to develop their personal potential. While this does not happen so much these days – indeed such people tend to seek life coaching – counselling for personal development rather than for personal pain is also a legitimate help-seeking reason.

It used to be widely held that counselling was a short-term intervention for people whose personal pain was focused and of short duration, while psychotherapy was longer-term and for people whose personal pain was more pervasive and chronic. However, a number of factors led to the blurring of these boundaries. First, people in the field struggled to differentiate counselling and psychotherapy as activities. In other words, it was not clear that the ways in which counsellors worked was reliably different from the ways in which psychotherapists worked. Secondly, people who deem themselves to be counsellors see people with pervasive and chronic problems, while those who deem themselves to be psychotherapists see people with focused and shorterlasting problems. Thirdly, counselling can be long-term and psychotherapy can be short-term. In recognition of some of these factors, and in response to their membership, the British Association for Counselling in September 2000 became the British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy.

Help-seeking by choice

Counselling is based on the idea that your clients have chosen to seek help. Now, it may be that some of your clients have been mandated by the courts to ‘attend’ counselling, meaning that they can choose either to go for counselling or be sent to prison. While this is not the same as freely seeking counselling help, your ‘mandated’ client has still exercised a choice in that he (in this case) has chosen to see you instead of being sent to prison. He may show much greater resistance to being in counselling than a client who has chosen to see you without constraint, but he has still exercised a choice.

Clients’ personal issues may well affect their behaviour in counselling

As I mentioned above, clients come to counselling in the main because they are in some kind of personal pain. While their personal problems relate to their life outside counselling, they may well bring these problems to counselling and thus these personal issues may well have a decided effect on their behaviour in counselling sessions. Indeed, there are some counsellors who hold the view that all client behaviours are a function of the issues with which they struggle outside counselling. Even if you don’t agree with this viewpoint, it is important that you recognise that your clients’ personal problems may well be played out with you since you may become a significant figure in their lives.

The working alliance between counsellor and client

At the end of the 1970s, Ed Bordin (1979) published a very important article which argued that counselling and psychotherapy could best be understood as an alliance between counsellor and client, both of whom have work to do in the process. He argued that the resultant ‘working alliance’ has three features.

The ‘bond’ between you and your clients

This component focuses on the interpersonal relationship between you and your clients. There are a number of factors that need to be considered when examining the bond components of the working alliance and I will discuss these factors in Chapter 2.

The ‘goals’ of the counselling

You and your clients come togethe...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Preface
• 1 The Components of Counselling in a Nutshell
• 2 Bonds
• 3 Views
• 4 Goals
• 5 Tasks
• 6 Counselling as a Process
• A Final Note
• Appendix 1
• References
• Index