Reflection Essay : Counselling Role Play.

Running head: REFLECTION ESSAY ON COUNSELLING ROLE PLAY
REFLECTION ESSAY ON COUNSELLING ROLE PLAY
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author note

REFLECTION ESSAY ON COUNSELLING ROLE PLAY1
This is a reflection essay on my role-play as a counsellor. This essay will reflect on my
performance as a counsellor using Egan’s helping model. The model is based on three stages that
focus on helping the client in every possible way. The paper then focuses on the micro-skills that
I showed in the counselling session to enhance the quality of my counselling session with the
client. It further focuses on the strategies that I suggested my client to help her with her
problems.
I played the role of a counsellor and tried to understand the problem that Mary was going
through. Since the client is a woman named Mary played by a male in the video, I would refer to
the client as a female in the essay. As in the video, it is seen that I first acknowledged the client
and asked what her problem was. The client could not clearly tell at first what exactly her
problem was. The client told that she felt unhappy and it was hard for to explain about what she
was going through. I, therefore, tried to ask her if she was having problems with her job or
anything related to her personal life. It was difficult for her to explain the problem that she was
facing and was a little skeptical in talking about her problem. I tried to establish rapport with her
and make her feel comfortable so that she could vividly state her problems to me.
Egan’s helper model is a 3-stage framework that is used to help people solve their
problems and develop opportunities. The goal of this model is to help people manage their
problems so that they can live more effectively and more opportunities are developed that can be
utilized to its full potential (Egan, 2013). This in turn helps people in becoming better at helping
themselves. This emphasises on empowering the individuals so that they can manage their own
problems in a better way. I used this framework to help my client. This model is best used when
the counsellors approach their clients and there is genuineness, empathy and respect on the part
of the speaker. It is important that the counsellor listens actively to the client so that he can show

REFLECTION ESSAY ON COUNSELLING ROLE PLAY2
him that he is present their to listen to his problems and help him in every way possible (Carver,
2015). I tried to incorporate the same into my counselling session with the client. I was focused
on listening to what the client had to say and tried to understand the problems that she was going
through.
The model is built on three stages. The first stage is exploration, which addresses the
question of “What is going on?”. Here it is the responsibility of the counsellor to understand the
story of the client through his own words and then provide a reflection on the story without any
kind of judgment (Egan & Reese, 2018). In the video, it can be seen that as a counsellor, I had
first asked my client the question of what the problem was. I was attentive, where I held proper
eye contact with her and gave out positive body language that hinted that I was proactive enough
to help her with her problems. Egan’s model states that the counsellor needs to be attentive to his
clients. I too was actively listening to what my client had to say. On asking, she said that she
could not explain her problem however; she felt a feeling of unhappiness. Further, it is important
to summarize and understand what the client wants to say. The counsellor must check his own
understanding of the problems (Tannen, Daniels & Koro-Ljungberg, 2019). On further probing
the client, I understood that the client was going through some personal problems in her life. She
was sad and was demotivated to do anything in her life because of her unhappy marriage. Her
husband Steve and she were living separately as their goals and expectations from each other
changed. They became too involved in their own careers and that led them to go on their separate
ways. I understood that she was demotivated and could not be happy with her life because she
was affected by the distance that had come between her and her husband. The problems in their
relationship was the core problem of her happiness. I then went on to ask questions about how