1. Understand what is meant by counselling skills
1.1 Define counselling skills
“Counselling skills help people to change as they learn to think things through for themselves and make their own decisions, free of the effects of past conditioning. (Heap 2011)”
“n the acquired verbal and non-verbal skills that enhance communication by helping a medical professional to establish a good rapport with a patient or client. (Farlex 2013)”
These are two definitions of counselling skills and both relate to different aspects of the use of these skills. The first relates to empowerment and enabling the client to look at things differently, and therefore reaching their own conclusions as to how to move forward. The second relates to the use of communication with a client to build up a healthy relationship.
In both examples it is important to acknowledge the use of active listening whatever the situation these skills may be used. If the client feels they are being listened to, they will feel more at ease and therefore, more likely to explore their thoughts and feelings more.
Active listening incorporates the use of various techniques including paraphrasing, giving back to the client in their own words what has been said to show understanding; clarifying, gaining an understanding of the clients world; and reflecting, gaining an understanding of what has been said and enabling a client to look at specific feelings they may have mentioned.
It is important however to note that counselling skills are used as a secondary role to the users primary role, an example of this could be a doctor, whose primary role is the health and well-being of the patient, and the counselling skills are used as a secondary role to understand the patients thoughts and feelings more.
My own personal definition of counselling skills is as follows:
“The use of active listening and communication skills in order to understand a clients thoughts and feelings and, by this process, enabling the client to...