Importance of Basic Counselling Skills in an Effective Counselling Session

Running Head: APPLIED COUNSELLING 0
APPLIED COUNSELLING
[Document subtitle]

APPLIED COUNSELLING 1
Abstract
The following paper is about the role of counselling skills in an effective counselling
session. The paper describes various counselling skills such as attending, listening, questioning
and empathy with help of a role- play. The limitations and risks of these skills are also discussed
in the paper.in the end, the idea regarding counselling are presented in a short form.

APPLIED COUNSELLING 2
Victoria, as a little girl was abused by her short-tempered parents on small and vague
things which irritated her parents, as she grew up with trauma, she got fearful, which made it
impossible for her to do even the mundane tasks. On advice of her friend to seek counselling, she
approached the best counselor of the area, the counsellor make her revisit the situation where she
was hurt deeply by using trigger phrases which made her feel that her parents are apologizing
thus helped her to get over the situation (Casey, 2019). Counselling means to assist a person
who is in need by using empathetic words or tactics to get over it, it gives an individual a fresh
start thus doing away with all negatives (Basic Counselling Skills: A Helper's Manual ). The
main idea of the paper is that use of basic counselling skills in an effective counselling can do
wonders for an individual, the following essay outlines the importance of basic counselling skills
in an individual and also the risks and limitation associated with it.
Counselling skills are important for an effective counselling session, attending its most
important skill.
In a high school, there was a boy named john who was badly bullied due to his short
height. The traumatic experience made him underperform in his job so seeing his dwindling
confidence the boss advised him to undergo the counselling session at the organization.
Following his boss advice, the employee decides to take counselling session, he visits the
counsellor who made him feel comfortable by offering a glass of water and playing a soothing
music in the background. After a few minutes of silence, he started the light conversation and
then asked him the cause of his underperformance, on this he replies he seldom faces with the
bouts of depression, when asked what made him depressed, he breaks with a cry that he is
affected by how people perceive him due to short stature, on further probing it was revealed that
an incident of bullying made him deeply wounded from inside then he instructed him to pour out
his bad emotions related to the incident on the piece of white paper and throw it in a dustbin after
that he made him visualize that the boys who bullied him were feeling guilty of what they did
and were telling him sorry, this small exercise relived him of the emotional burden (Sharma,
1996).The role play mentioned above proves that Counselling skills if used tactfully can be of
immense help to bring back a person from the situation of despair. Are there any skills, which
can truly revive a person? The basic counselling skills include attending, listening, empathy,
questioning or probing ( Sutton & Stewart, 2008). The most important skill for effective