The Traits That Will Help You Thrive as a Counselor

Running head: EFFECTIVE COUNSELING SKILLS
Effective Counseling Skills
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Introduction
Counseling is a process of giving advice to the people who need special support. In most
of the cases the assistance is provided by special professional counselors who possess various
skills. Through counseling sessions the patients speak up their problems and the counselor
addresses the individual problems with efficiency and professionalism providing solution to their
issues. Effective counseling requires a set of skills, and the person providing the advice should
be properly trained in them. The following essay deals with the role of basic counseling skills in
effective counseling and how each skill is used by the counselor to facilitate effective
counseling.
Discussion
Effective counseling and efficient counselors make use of different counseling skills
through which they listen and understand the problems of their clients. There are several macro
as well as micro skills which are necessary for a counselor to possess (Nelson – Jones, 2015).
The fundamental counseling skill is to provide an ear to the patients. It is the role of a counselor
to listen empathically to the problems of the patients. Along with this, the core counseling skills
are listening actively and attentively, taking care of the non verbal communication and
expressions of the patients and also building a rapport with them.
It is the role of a counselor to attend their patients with utmost patience. According to
Bayne & Jangha, 2016), the person who visit the counselors expect full attention from them. it is
important to listen to what they speak and value their problems, here comes the micro skill
associated with it, which is demonstrating empathy towards them. during the client- counselor

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sessions it is very important on their part of the counselor to impart the empathetic skills. This
helps the patients to open up and share their problems. This ensures that being empathic towards
them actually means listening to them carefully without judging them or their issues
(Hutchinson, 2014). By using empathy in the interactive sessions, the counselors successfully
can build a strong relationship with the client, they can stimulate them to self explore and
provide them the necessary support.
According to McHenry & McHEnry (2015), another important skill that is essential for
the counselors is reflection upon the contents and the feelings of the clients. This involves
reflecting upon the issues and the problems that the patient has said. Alongside it is very
important for the counselor to show their involvement in the interaction by repeating what the
client had said. This is very important in the reflection scenario because it helps the clients to
trust their counselors. However according to the argument of Aladag, Yaka & Koc (2014), it is
very important for the counselors to be aware of not to overuse reflection of the content. It must
be limited and the conversation must seem normal. Moreover, in accordance to this, there should
also be reflection of feelings that the clients share. The emotional effect should be acknowledged
and there should be reflection of the non verbal communication and expressions too. It is very
essential for an effective counselor to take notice of the emotions and reflect them verbally to
the clients so that they feel that the conversation is effective.
Silence is a key role that the counselors should play. They should remain silent and not
interrupt the clients unnecessarily. This would help the clients speak up their issues with utmost
diligence and the counselors in return can concentrate and focus on the problems (Fawcett &
Borck-Jameson, 2014). Focusing on the problems is extremely important for the counselors to
make decisions and to deal with the issues professionally. If they have any query regarding the

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issues, they should clarify the same by asking questions. This is another important role of a
counselor. Questions in counseling are very basic and it not only benefits the clients nut also the
counselors (Somemrs – Flanagan & Somemrs – Flanagan, 2018) . If they have an issue on
understanding or following the sequence of events in the issues narrated by the clients, the
counselors should feel free to ask questions to them and also ask them to repeat. This
clarification plays a dual role. it helps the clients to develop belief upon the professionals that
they are paying attention to whatever the problem is. Moreover, as per the discussion of O’Hare,
(2016), it can help them to re think their position and by repeating what they have said, they can
feel the underlying emphasis. This would also enable the counselors to build rapport with the
clients and the patients and strengthen the connections with them. When the connections are
properly build, the counselors should play the role of asking questions. This is the only method
through which he can know more about the person and also encourage him to think himself
about his experience. He puts his clients in front of a series of open ended questions which allow
them to increase the awareness of the clients, themselves. The client as a result of these open
ended questions, try to find a closed solution, in turn becoming completely aware of what is
happening with them (Cochran & Cochran, 2015). These questions serve another purpose of
verbalizing the internal thoughts of the patients. The open ended questions can be career
oriented, goal oriented, or regarding anything that would aid the client to find solutions to their
issues themselves. This defines the role of the counselor which is to show the path of solution to
their clients and not solving their problems directly.
However, apart from the need to have proper skills as an effective counselor, there are
several limitations to the same (Barden & Greene, 2015). The counselors should respect the
decisions. They can often decide not to take the sessions and this decision f theirs should be

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respected by the professionals. Moreover, the confidentiality is a very important factor. They
should keep the information personal and confidential and they should not engage themselves in
any other information until they have prior permission from their clients. Moreover, another
limitation of them is that they cannot impose any sort of religious values to their clients. The
counselors are also limited to practice within their own area of expertise. Also according to
Fawcett & Borck – Jameson (2014), they are not allowed to practice outside that. They should
treat the clients on the basis of their training and for further treatment, they should be referring
their clients to other counselors and should not practice treatment upon them. moreover, the
counselors like the medical professionals should not harm the clients and the treatment should be
done on a professional basis and not personally basis. Moreover, the counselors should be taking
permission from the clients for the therapeutic treatments.
Conclusion:
Thus from the above discussion it can be concluded that there are several set of skills
which should be present in a councilor in order to treat their clients and their patients effectively.
An efficient counselor should perform his role with professional skills , out of which the
fundamental one is to listen attentively to the problems of the patients, this also includes
imparting empathy towards them and reflecting their content and their feelings occasionally.
Through this the counselor can effectively build a rapport with the client which would help him
to trust the professional and speak out his inner feelings. The counselor should also have the
skills of clarification of doubt whenever he requires, and should also ask open ended questions to
the client, through which they can start thinking about their self, finding solution to their
problems themselves.

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References:
Aladag, M., Yaka, B., & Koç, I. (2014). Opinions of Counselor Candidates Regarding
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Bayne, H. B., & Jangha, A. (2016). Utilizing improvisation to teach empathy skills in counselor
education. Counselor Education and Supervision, 55(4), 250-262.
Cochran, J. L., & Cochran, N. H. (2015). The heart of counseling: Counseling skills through
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Fawcett, S. B., & Borck-Jameson, L. (2014). Learning counseling and problem-solving skills.
Routledge.
Hutchinson, D. (2014). The essential counselor: Process, skills, and techniques. Sage
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McHenry, B., & McHenry, J. (2015). What therapists say and why they say it: Effective
therapeutic responses and techniques. Routledge.
Nelson-Jones, R. (2015). Basic counselling skills: A helper's manual. Sage.

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O'Hare, T. (2016). Essential skills of social work practice: Assessment, intervention, and
evaluation. Lyceum Books.
Sommers-Flanagan, J., & Sommers-Flanagan, R. (2018). Counseling and psychotherapy theories
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