Importance of Counselling | Report

Running head: COUNSELLING SKILLS
COUNSELLING SKILLS
Name of the student
Name of the university
Author Note

Running head: COUNSELLING SKILLS
Introduction
Importance of counselling
Counselling or psychotherapy can be defined as a personal and individual process
where a trained psychologist seeks to offer emotional, psychological and cognitive assistance
to an individual or a community to change or modify their attitude and/ or behavior so that
they can cope with certain mental illness or psychosomatic illness (Kasket 2012). In today’s
epoch where the urbanization, rapid industrialization and competition in professions and
academic fields have made our lives difficult and highly complicated, every individual in
today’s time has faced some kind or the other mental illness issues and psychological
disorders (Larsson, Brooks and Loewenthal 2012). Counselling is the process by which many
individuals and communities that suffer from psychological illness and disillusionment are
provided with proper aid and guidance to carry out their lives smoothly. Psychological
counselling is important because it helps people with physical, mental and emotional issues to
improve their sense of well being by alleviating negative feelings, distress and helps them to
resolve matters such as anxiety and crisis (Wosket 2016). Counselling psychologists also
provide assessment, diagnosis and treatment of mild to severe psychological symptoms. The
particular essay will provide an analysis of a counselling session, and will also describe the
micro skills utilised, as well as a critical evaluation of their effectiveness. A discussion of the
application of these skills, as well as areas of possible improvement will be supported by
reference to relevant literature thereafter.
Person centered approach to counselling
Person centered approach to counselling is a non- authoratative approach to
counselling that allows the client to take the lead in discussion, so that, in the process of

Running head: COUNSELLING SKILLS
discussion, the patient himself/ herself discovers his/her own solution (Mearns, Thorne and
McLeod 2013). In the person centered approach, the therapist works as a compassionate
listener who tends to be unprejudiced and non judgemental in his/her approach (Tolan and
Cameron 2016). The therapist acts as a catalyst to the self discovery process of the client
(Cooper et al. 2013). The person centered approach to counselling is used by the therapist if
he/she thinks that the client or patient needs to build up self confidence and a stronger sense
of identity among him/her which would facilitate the person to tackle emotional and
psychological issues in his/her later life (Wilkins 2015).
Analysis of the video
The respective video talks about “Person centered approach” where the man (who is
the client) is seen to be talking about the issues he has been facing with his betterhalf to a
counsellor who is eager to listen to his problems and issues. Throughout the video, the
counsellor (the lady psychologist) have tried to convince the client to “solve issues within
himself” which is an important part of a “person centered approach” of counselling. The issue
that the client was going through with his wife was that his wife, who is always busy with her
job and housework, tends to become too much explosive when she is questioned at home. It
can directly or indirectly mean that she must be frustrated with her work or facing a personal
development crisis while maintaining a work- life balance. Throughout the counselling
session, the psychologist has been trying to make the client talk about what are the issues he
has been facing all over his married and family life. While the man has talked about the
issues he has been facing in his personal life that made him psychologically crushed so he
took refuge to a psychologist, the counsellor on the other hand made him understand what he
has been finding difficulties in through basic paraphrasing therapy. The therapist has asked
the person to tell her certain examples where the man has faced conflict with his wife. While
the man was giving the examples of the phases of conflict he has been facing with his wife,