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EFFECTIVE COUNSELOR:Humanism, People Orientation, Intellectual Curiosity

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Theory and Practice of Counseling - PSY632
VU
Lesson 09
EFFECTIVE COUNSELOR
Example of Congruence
Client: "My parents do not understand me. When I want to communicate my viewpoint to them, they think
I am being disrespectful. They don't understand that disagreeing does not mean being rude"
Counselor: "These kinds of communication gaps can sometime exist between parents and their children.
When I was a teenager I often thought that it was difficult to make my parents understand what I felt".
Meta Analysis of Combs et al. (1969)
Major differences between effective and ineffective counselors were their personal beliefs and traits. Roger
maintained that counselor's theory and methods were far less important than the client's perception of the
counselor's attitude. The personal characteristics model for addressing the health and wellness of the
counselor or therapist has been discussed from perspectives other than that of Carl Rogers:
Combs and his colleagues (1969) conducted a series of studies resulting in the conclusion that the personal
beliefs and traits of the counselor or therapist differentiated between effective and ineffective helping. Some
of these traits are as under:
·  Effective helpers seem to perceive others as able, rather than unable, to solve their own problems
and manage their own lives. Effective helpers also perceive others as dependable, friendly, worthy,
able to cope, and able to be communicative and self-disclosing.
·  In general, effective helpers maintain a positive view of human nature and approach. Family,
friends, colleagues, and clients in a trusting, affirming way.
·  The major technique of counseling was the "self as instrument"
·  Effective counselors perceived other people as able rather than unable to solve their own problems.
Moreover they perceive people as dependable, friendly and worthy.
·  More likely to identify with people rather than things
Meier and Davis (2001):
Helpers who are the most effective strive to apply the four following principles to assess characteristics and
traits that impact their own ability to assist others and may reflect their own level of health and wellness:
·  Become aware of your personal issues
·  Be open to supervision
·  Avoid hiding behind the use of too many tests
·  Consult when presented with an ethical dilemma.
Other Personal Characteristics of an Effective Counselor
·  Motives
·  Emotional Responsiveness
·  Sense of Worth & Anxieties
·  Sex-Role Identity and Expectations
·  Values
·  Cultural Bias
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Theory and Practice of Counseling - PSY632
VU
Counselor's Motives to Enter the Profession: Beneficial Motives
Humanism
·
Humanism (commitment to create a better world) involves empowering others by fostering their
personal development. Humanism allows counselors to commit themselves to the struggle to make
themselves and others better people for the sake of a better world.
People Orientation
·
Holland's theory of personality types asserts that the special heredity and experiences of people lead
to the characteristics of six main personality types realistic, investigative, artistic, social, enterprising
and conventional. The social personality type in particular is found in the helping professions.
Illustrative characteristics of the social personality type are responsible, helpful, friendly, idealistic,
feminine, insightful and kind.
Intellectual Curiosity
·
Effective counselors tend to enjoy the challenge of making and testing hypotheses about human
behavior. They are in a constant process of revising their models of the person and of counseling
practice
Worked-through Emotional Pain
·
Counselors who have worked through their pain and attained some distance from it may have extra
sensitivity to the needs of others.
Commitment to Competence
·
Effective counselors like to do things well and are prepared to work at it. There are many
dimensions of competence: like honestly evaluating counseling process, keep well studied, prepared
to work on professional issues, learning from supervisor, and professional integrity.
Counselor's Motives to Enter the Profession: Harmful Motives
Unresolved Emotional Pain
Counselors who have unresolved emotional pain, their underlying agenda may be to seek help rather than to
provide it. Their attraction to nurturing others stems from their own need to be nurtured.
Do-Gooding
These counselors may wish to take charge and, by so doing, treat clients as objects and infantilize them. Do-
gooders may overly concern themselves with obtaining clients' approval and appreciation for their good
works.
Seeking Intimacy
Some people are attracted to counseling because it provides opportunities for psychological closeness they
find difficult to obtain otherwise. This way of gaining emotional closeness was one of Carl Rogers's
motivations for becoming a counselor (Rogers, 1980).
True Blieverism
True-believerism implies lack of openness to conflicting evidence and to the specific needs of individual
clients. For example, true believers in the rights of minority groups, believers in term of theoretical
positions: for example, hard line rational emotive behavior therapy or gestalt therapy advocates.
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Theory and Practice of Counseling - PSY632
VU
Emotional Responsiveness
You bring to counseling your capacity to experience your feelings. Many reasons exist why it is important
for counselors to be responsive to their flow of feeling. These reasons include being genuine, spontaneous
and able to resonate and appropriately to respond to clients' feelings. Your feelings are good guide to issues
in your relationships with clients.
Inability and Repressing Feelings
As you grew up you learned, in varying degrees, that it is unsafe to acknowledge, experience and express all
feelings. For example, if in adolescent, someone is told that it is sin to think about opposite sex. The person
as adult may feel anxious when is having intimacy with his or her spouse in adult life. Consequently, some
people find it difficult to express any feelings. They are emotionally flat and lifeless. Different families may
inhibit or dilute the experiencing of specific emotions like sensuality, anger, sadness or death anxiety.
Moreover, families vary in the extent to which they encourage children to experience and show altruistic
feelings. Differences also exist across cultural, gender and social class groups. For example, the `strong,
silent' type is a male stereotype. It may be that because of this gender stereotype, as compared to women
men often find it difficult to be empathic and emotionally responsive.
Internalize others' feeling as if your own
The main thrust of Rogers's person-centered therapy is to assist clients to experience their own inner
valuing process rather than to deny and distort their feelings. Counselors learn to internalize the feelings of
significant others in their past as if they were their own.
Transferring unfinished business
Both counselors and clients can distort their perceptions and feelings towards one another by transferring
perceptions from past relationships. Transferred feelings can be either positive or negative.
Counselor's Sense of worth & Anxieties
Sense of worth
Insecurities and fears, if not confronted and managed, can be the breeding ground for distorted
communication. This is also determined by one's relationships with parents. For example, members of
facilitative families help each other to become a mentally healthy person. Parents of retarding families feel
insecure and they transmit their insecurity to their children. Counselor's resulting lack of sense of worth as a
consequence of their own insecurities can hinder the counseling relationship.
Meaninglessness and Alienation
Rollo May talked about modern individual's isolation from the environment. Similarly, Carl Jung and Victor
Frankl (Viennese psychiatrist) maintained that sense of meaning keeps us alive. Sullivan maintained that
90% of human communication is specially designed not to communicate. There is a close connection
between your (counselor's) sense of worth and feelings of anxiety:
·  Insecurity manifests and engenders anxiety. People who feel worthwhile are relatively free from
debilitating anxieties.
·  Counselor anxiety may be facilitating, debilitating or both. For example, a little anxiety will increase
the counselor's sensitivity to feel the client's problems. However, it may also make the counselor
more anxious or defensive. For example, the rule `I must always have my clients' approval' leads to
over-sensitivity to cues of rejection.
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Theory and Practice of Counseling - PSY632
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Fears and Anxieties
Positive Consequences
·  Sensitivity to clients' anxieties
·  Necessary to tone counselors up
Negative Consequences
·  May cease to listen accurately
·  May perceive and relate to clients in terms of their own needs
·  Assuming too much responsibility
Results of excessive anxiety
Specific behaviors that may result from excessive counselor anxiety include:
·  Asking too many questions.
·  Offering superficial reassurance and being too directive in telling clients how to behave.
Sex-Role Identity and Expectations
·  Certain psychological characteristics have been traditionally viewed as either `feminine' or
`masculine'. Feminine characteristics have included being affectionate, gentle, sensitive to the need
of others, tender and warm. Masculine characteristics have included being aggressive, ambitious,
assertive, analytical and dominant.
·  Sex-role identity develops due to the socialization process. The books we read show boys and girls
in different roles, as did the films and television programs we watch. Similarly, both male and
female children are exposed to different treatments in schools, for example, the subjects they were
encouraged to study and the occupations thought appropriate for them varied by sex.
·  The androgynous male or female `is flexible masculine or feminine as circumstances warrant' (Bem,
1981, p.362).
·  Our current sex-role identity is the internalized sum of individual differences, personal situational
factors and cultural, social and environmental influences. The traditional feminine sex role has
created problems for many women in such areas as expressing anger, being autonomous and
obtaining power and status. The traditional masculine role has created problems for many men
through excessive concern with success, power and competition, being emotionally inexpressive
and restricting affectionate behavior between men.
·  Counselor may assess clients differently according to whether or not they fit into traditional sex
roles. Thus, females and males can be brought up with the capacity to express a range of
characteristics independently of whether they have traditionally been viewed as `masculine' or
`feminine'. For instance, men can be tender and women assertive.
·  As long as males and females adopt the strengths rather than the deficits of the other sex's gender
characteristics, androgyny is helpful for enriching people's lives.
·  The counselor may engage in simplistic over-generalizations about the characteristics of males and
females and insufficiently acknowledge within-group differences.
Activity 1: My Sex-Role Identity and Expectations
·  Did you get different toys on account of your sex?
·  Did you get different clothes including their colour, on account of your sex?
·  What roles your mother and father play in caring for you as a child?
·  Who does/did the following tasks in your family: dusting, shopping for food, ironing, washing clothes,
cooking, mending clothes, looking after the car, fixing machinery, changing a fuse, decorating house, etc.
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Theory and Practice of Counseling - PSY632
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Activity 2: Learning Psychological Characteristics
Which of the following psychological characteristics do you consider each of your parents either
encouraged you or discouraged you to show?
Gentleness, ambitiousness, feeling of vulnerability, sensitivity, competitiveness, career orientation,
dominance, concern with your clothes, being nurturing, home orientation.
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Table of Contents:
  1. INTRODUCTION:Counseling Journals, Definitions of Counseling
  2. HISTORICAL BACKGROUND COUNSELING & PSYCHOTHERAPY
  3. HISTORICAL BACKGROUND 1900-1909:Frank Parson, Psychopathic Hospitals
  4. HISTORICAL BACKGROUND:Recent Trends in Counseling
  5. GOALS & ACTIVITIES GOALS OF COUNSELING:Facilitating Behavior Change
  6. ETHICAL & LEGAL ISSUES IN COUNSELING:Development of Codes
  7. ETHICAL & LEGAL ISSUES IN COUNSELING:Keeping Relationships Professional
  8. EFFECTIVE COUNSELOR:Personal Characteristics Model
  9. EFFECTIVE COUNSELOR:Humanism, People Orientation, Intellectual Curiosity
  10. EFFECTIVE COUNSELOR:Cultural Bias in Theory and Practice, Stress and Burnout
  11. COUNSELING SKILLS:Microskills, Body Language & Movement, Paralinguistics
  12. COUNSELING SKILLS COUNSELOR’S NONVERBAL COMMUNICATION:Use of Space
  13. COUNSELING SKILLS HINTS TO MAINTAIN CONGRUENCE:
  14. LISTENING & UNDERSTANDING SKILLS:Barriers to an Accepting Attitude
  15. LISTENING & UNDERSTANDING SKILLS:Suggestive Questions,
  16. LISTENING & UNDERSTANDING SKILLS:Tips for Paraphrasing, Summarizing Skills
  17. INFLUENCING SKILLS:Basic Listening Sequence (BLS), Interpretation/ Reframing
  18. FOCUSING & CHALLENGING SKILLS:Focused and Selective Attention, Family focus
  19. COUNSELING PROCESS:Link to the Previous Lecture
  20. COUNSELING PROCESS:The Initial Session, Counselor-initiated, Advice Giving
  21. COUNSELING PROCESS:Transference & Counter-transference
  22. THEORY IN THE PRACTICE OF COUNSELING:Timing of Termination
  23. PSYCHOANALYTIC APPROACHES TO COUNSELING:View of Human Nature
  24. CLASSICAL PSYCHOANALYTIC APPROACH:Psychic Determination, Anxiety
  25. NEO-FREUDIANS:Strengths, Weaknesses, NEO-FREUDIANS, Family Constellation
  26. NEO-FREUDIANS:Task setting, Composition of Personality, The Shadow
  27. NEO-FREUDIANS:Ten Neurotic Needs, Modes of Experiencing
  28. CLIENT-CENTERED APPROACH:Background of his approach, Techniques
  29. GESTALT THERAPY:Fritz Perls, Causes of Human Difficulties
  30. GESTALT THERAPY:Role of the Counselor, Assessment
  31. EXISTENTIAL THERAPY:Rollo May, Role of Counselor, Logotherapy
  32. COGNITIVE APPROACHES TO COUNSELING:Stress-Inoculation Therapy
  33. COGNITIVE APPROACHES TO COUNSELING:Role of the Counselor
  34. TRANSACTIONAL ANALYSIS:Eric Berne, The child ego state, Transactional Analysis
  35. BEHAVIORAL APPROACHES:Respondent Learning, Social Learning Theory
  36. BEHAVIORAL APPROACHES:Use of reinforcers, Maintenance, Extinction
  37. REALITY THERAPY:Role of the Counselor, Strengths, Limitations
  38. GROUPS IN COUNSELING:Major benefits, Traditional & Historical Groups
  39. GROUPS IN COUNSELING:Humanistic Groups, Gestalt Groups
  40. MARRIAGE & FAMILY COUNSELING:Systems Theory, Postwar changes
  41. MARRIAGE & FAMILY COUNSELING:Concepts Related to Circular Causality
  42. CAREER COUNSELING:Situational Approaches, Decision Theory
  43. COMMUNITY COUNSELING & CONSULTING:Community Counseling
  44. DIAGNOSIS & ASSESSMENT:Assessment Techniques, Observation
  45. FINAL OVERVIEW:Ethical issues, Influencing skills, Counseling Approaches