Client Centered Technique in Counselling (Term Paper Sample)

A research paper analyzing a counseling session I conducted for fifteen minutes, analyzing whether I was consistent or inconsistent with the client centered theory, exploring the reasons for why I did so.
Many a times, in the course of their lives, people find themselves assuming the role of a counselor. In most cases however, these people tasked with the role of counseling lack the much needed understanding of what counselling entails or what the role of a professional counsellor involves. Counseling can be defined as the process of assisting someone to overcome personal, social or psychological difficulties. Counselling can be done in two forms, either by the help of a professional counsellor, or through a friend or colleague who has the capability of offering significant advice. The role of a professional counselor and that of an "unqualified" counsellor is often misunderstood, but the differentiating fact is that a professional counsellor is trained and equipped with skills to use on clients whereas a friend/colleague "unqualified counselor" lacks training but is still able to give significant advice on simpler issue.
To expound on this further, counseling entails the following processes:
* The client and counselor have to set apart time for discussing and finding solutions to the pressing issues, either personal, social or psychological, that bring about stress or discomfort to the client.
* From the counselling session, the client will get to look at the pressing matter from a different view point and most times more clearly. This enables the client to demonstrate positive attitude towards their feelings with a goal of attaining a positive change.
* Counselling relies solely on trust. Confidentiality is a key aspect in counselling and this provides a safe platform for airing out grievances without fear of disclosure. However, this policy of confidentiality can be breached in regard to policies of the law which allow for disclosure whenever there is a risk of life involved.
Counseling and Psychotherapy
In most cases, people use the term psychotherapy and counselling to describe the same process. However, despite the fact that both processes aim at helping a client overcome, resolve and proceed positively towards making changes in their lives, the two processes are quite distinct. Counselling focuses primarily on highlighting the emotional experiences that affect the client, how the situation in question affects their feelings and what their thoughts are concerning the situation. Psychotherapy on the other hand seeks to make the client review his past, especially the situation in question and analyze how these situations are affecting their current state. A psychotherapist therefore assists the client to understand his past situation, which most times the client seems unaware of. Counselors show very little interest in past experiences and situations, and from the training they receive, focus primarily on client-centered therapy, which form the basis for counseling.
Role of a counsellor
To be a successful counsellor, one must have in mind the face that no two clients are similar or share the same train of thought and capability of handling difficult situations and experiences, owing to the fact that the way they will react to a situation is dependent on their personal experiences in the world. Therefore, it is very essential that the counsellor avoids instances of expecting his/her clients to react in a manner they would when faced with a similar situation. The role of a counsellor is primarily to enable the client sightsee various aspects of their lives though talking in an open and free manner. In most cases, talking freely to close friends and family members becomes quite difficult owing to the emotional attachment and fear of judgment. However, since a model counselor exhibits emotional detachment from the client, opinions are freely shared, resulting to success in the counselling process. The counsellor desists having judgmental attributes and neither will he/she offer any form of advice. The healing and progressive steps all result from the client themselves. The counsellor will give the client a safe environment for airing out his/her grievances, be it anger, resentment guilt or fear. The counsellor will in most times encourage the client to critically observe instances in their lives that prior to the session they had difficulty facing.
A successful counseling session may emphasize on exploration of the clients childhood experiences, which may provide a rightful assessment of the clients reaction to challenging situations. Mostly, after careful analysis of these experiences, the counsellor will consider ways in which the client could adjust these reactions. Effective counselling will allow the client see situations with the much needed clarity essential for making positive steps towards changing their mindset towards challenging situations. The critical aim of counselling is enabling the client arrive at, and make their own decisions and act upon them accordingly, and does not involve any form of advice giving.
Client Centered Approach
In understanding the client centered approach, we first have to look at its architect, psychologist Carl Rodgers (1902- 1887) who made enormous steps in expounding his dislike in the way psychology treated people as object of study rather than individuals deserving respect and understanding( Merry, 2002, pg 2). This meant that the counselor, needed to show attributes such as positive regard, empathy and congruence whenever a client sought help from them.
The client centered approach is therefore defined as a precise from of interviewing in which the client only responds to questions asked by the counsellor, more like a direct interview rather than a discussion. Patterson (1985) however outlines a number of characteristics exhibited by the client centered approach that may either promote or limit it as a form of counseling
1 Some of the questions the counseling interviewer asks may pose as intimidating to the client who may not be ready to offer full disclosure at that moment.
2 A client may not have the answers to most questions asked, particularly in the early stages of the interviewing session.
3 Questioning makes the session seem like an leaning process rather than an important process seeking to discover and solve situations
Some of the essential prepositions the Client Centered Approach employs include:
* Each person lives in an ever changing world in which he/she is at the center. Owing to this our reality is seen as dependent on ourselves and each individual has and knows his/her own perceptions.
* Human beings have the basic instinct to survive and live happily trough being positive, striving for excellence, improving and protecting themselves. This is a natural trait universal to all human beings
* The actions we take in our lives as a result of our behavior all seek to satisfy the need to fulfill our goals and expectations for acquiring basic wants.
* Emotion stands at the core of all decisions we make and alter with the outcome of all situations that befall us. E.g. people are happy when good things happen and are sad about bad things.
* In order to understand behavior, it lies within us to look within and find the answers as each individual is the only one whose capable of understanding his/her inner thoughts and feelings.
* Interaction with the others and the environment is inevitable, ant through this people are able to build perceptions and relationships that affect the course of their lives.
* Experiences encountered in the life of the individual are either perceived or symbolized and are later organized, ignored or denied in their perception.
* Inconsistent experiences with the day to day structures of a person are usually perceived as a threat and persons who are prone to being susceptible to these changes maintain their normal livelihood.
* When the individual perceives and accepts into one consistent and integrated system all his sensory and visceral experiences, then he is necessarily more understanding of others and is more accepting of others as separate individuals.
Attitude
Attitude plays a key role on the effectiveness of counseling. Allport (1935) explained the importance of psychological research on the concept of attitude as it stood as the most distinctive and indispensable concept in counseling. Krech and Crutchfield (1948) described an attitude as a long-term motivational, emotional and perceptual organisation with respect to aspect of the individual's world. Eagly and Chaiken (1993) also defined attitude as "a psychological tendency that is expressed by evaluating a particular entity with some degree of favour or disfavour" (p. 1).
This brings forth an important question of whether attitudes can they be measured; (McLeod, 2009) explains that research done has suggested that the basic technique that can be employed to find out a person’s s attitude is simply to ask them. However, attitudes are prone to change depending on peoples interactions with the world and others. This meant that attitude is primarily dependent on the circumstances or situation in which an event occurs. Usually, attitudes result directly from experience, either through direct personal experience, or observation. Social roles, which dictate the acceptable behaviour of people and social norms which involve the set rules in the society for appropriate behaviours are other causes of attitude.
A number of individuals are also said to have learnt attitudes through observation of the people close to them. This means that a person will be attracted to behaviour or traits shown by a person or people they admire. Like when you like a particular rock band, you end up dressing like them. This type of acquiring attitudes, named cognitive dissonance in most inst...