Counseling Skills
Counseling an individual requires different skills to ensure adopting the right approach for a client. It is through counseling skills that a care provider – including psychologists – addresses illnesses such as trauma, stress or depression. Counseling skills vary with reference to different medical practitioners. An approach used by an ordinary doctor – assigned a counseling responsibility – is different from the method adopted by a professional psychologist. In essence, providing counseling requires the use of basic principles that aid in the recovery of a patient.
Listening to a patient – suffering from anxiety – is one of the basic principles of providing counseling services. Active listening ensures that a counselor is accurate when gathering information from a patient. In the case context provided, the female client narrates a horrifying accident that ends up with a death scenario. The client notes that, despite not directly affected by the accident, the entire scenario scares her from driving in the highway (Curtis, 2012). It is through active listening that a counselor ensures timely interruptions contribute to information gathering from the patient. Active listening also requires a counselor to respond to a client’s feelings or content. Responding to a patient’s feelings and content of information encourages them to provide comprehensive information related to a particular ordeal.
Counseling skills should incorporate a response process in which a practitioner summarizes a client’s situation. After active listening, a counselor summarizes the client’s information and takes notes on a piece of paper. The short notes are important in developing a pattern of events that aid in developing a therapy process for a patient (Dietrich & Bowers, 2018). Note taking – during a counseling process – is crucial for a traumatized patient as it allows more interaction with a counselor. More interaction with a patient enables a counselor to create a pattern of events that inter-relates different scenarios. A pattern of events enables a therapist to determine which counseling approach to adopt that will be effective for a patient.
References
Curtis, D. R. (2012, June 15). Retrieved March 28, 2019, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OwW8x_0YGLI
Dietrich, D., & Bowers, C. (2018). Influence of an Online Counseling Skills Course on Student Perceptions of Counseling Skills. International Journal on E-Learning, 17(3), 325-339.