Applied Counselling | Essay

Running head: APPLIED COUNSELLING
APPLIED COUNSELLING
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

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APPLIED COUNSELLING
Counselling skills are used by counsellors to understand as well as help their clients.
Through actively listening to their clients, building a good connection with them the client
develops a trust on his counsellor as the latter acts as a good listener (Erlina et al., 2018). It
should be noted that effective counselling applies many skills of basic counselling that helps
in the mutual understanding between the counsellor and the client (Erlina et al., 2018). An
effective counsellor helps the client through the information that is shared between the two.
Good counsellor skills goes together with good counselling skills. The primary aim of the
essay is to discuss the role of basic counselling in effective counselling skills.
To be an effective counsellor it is very essential to pay attention to the following
aspects- attending, listening as well as questioning. Attending is a way by which the
counsellors can comfort their clients by convincing the latter that they are with them both
physically as well as psychologically (Geldard, Geldard & Foo 2017). Effective attending
helps in explaining the clients that counsellors are with them irrespective of the situation and
that now they can freely share their ideas as well as their problems with the counsellors. If the
counsellor effectively attends his/her clients then the latter will gain confidence in disclosing
his problems as well as their secrets that will further help in their treatment (Geldard, Geldard
& Foo 2017). The counsellor should also make sure that while attending the client he listens
more instead of speaking a lot. Attending to their clients at the same time means that the
counsellor should be empathetic towards their clients to win the confidence of the latter
(Geldard, Geldard & Foo 2017).
An effective counsellor should also be a good listener that will help in establishing
trust with the client and at the same time it will also help in disclosing the innermost thoughts
of the latter (Behrani, 2016). Effective listening will further help the counsellor to gather
information that will in turn help in the effective treatment of the client. It also helps in
facilitating as well as influencing the clients opinions as well as responsiveness towards the

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APPLIED COUNSELLING
counsellor (Behrani, 2016). The counsellor should therefore apply active as well as reflective
listening so that the information that is delivered by the client can be pondered as well as
restated. It is the responsibility of an effective counsellor to overcome all kinds of barriers
while attending as well as listening to the clients (Behrani, 2016). Questioning is another vital
aspect of effective counselling. Asking questions while talking to the clients helps in opening
new areas of discussion. Questioning helps in clarifying the information that is being
delivered by the clients (Vaart & Oudenaarden 2018). Questioning also helps in enriching the
story of the client that can used at the time of interview for the speedy recovery of the client.
Questioning also helps the clients to understand the gap between what they feel and what
actually happens (Vaart & Oudenaarden 2018). The questions that are asked to the clients
should be rhetorical where the counsellor should make use of both open as well as close
ended questions (Vaart & Oudenaarden 2018). Therefore, the above aspects are very essential
that helps in making effective counselling successful.
Effective counselling also applies some of the characteristics as well as skills that are
required for basic counselling such as empathy, clarifying, incorporation of open ended
questions and lastly reflecting on feelings as well as content (Bayne & Jangha 2016).
Empathy is one of the essential aspects in effective counselling. Effective empathy helps in
building greater level of trust between the counsellor as well as the client. The latte also
develops a self-understanding of his/her problems and at the same time develops a feeling of
security and peace (Bayne & Jangha 2016). Counsellors who are empathetic can make the
treatment quick as well as effective. Empathy should be showed towards the clients by using
short responses but the counsellor should always be responsive towards their client and
should think from the perspective of the clients (Elliott et al., 2018). Therefore empathy helps
in effective counselling process, however, it has its own limitations like the client my take his
empathetic counsellor for granted. One of the risk of the above aspect is that it can affect the