Counselling and Rehabilitation: Anxiety Case Study, University Student

This report presents a counselling case study focusing on a university student experiencing anxiety related to family and future employment concerns. The case utilizes the Rational Emotive Behavioral Therapy (REBT) approach, detailing the client's background, symptoms, and the application of REBT principles. The report outlines the counselling skills employed, including confidentiality, attending, empathy, and summarizing, and describes the structure of a counselling session. The REBT model is explained, emphasizing its directive and active nature in addressing irrational thoughts and promoting rational thinking to manage emotional and behavioral problems. The report highlights the importance of rapport building, active listening, and the counselor's role in guiding the client towards self-acceptance and mental wellness. The case study provides insights into the practical application of counselling techniques in addressing anxiety and promoting rehabilitation.

Running Head: APPLIED COUNSELLING AND REHABILITATION / COUNSELLING 1
Applied Counselling and Rehabilitation / Counselling
Name
Institution
Date

APPLIED COUNSELLING AND REHABILITATION / COUNSELLING 2
Applied Counselling and Rehabilitation / Counselling
Introduction
Counselling is a therapy intervention, that includes an individual willing to share or talk about
his or her problems and related feelings in a safe and confidential environment to a counselor
(McLeod, 2013). A counselor is an individual equipped with relevant counselling skills and is
believed to have the ability to give the right advice to the individual seeking help also referred to
as the client to solving his or her problem. Counselling began in the 20th century after it was
discovered that back in the tribal lineage , people would come together to form groups where
they would share their problems and even sometimes their dreams (Di Mattia & Grant, 2016).
The groups included the most dependable people in the society like the priests who would come
with a way forward to help them find solutions to the problems they were experiencing.
According to German neurologist, his psychoanalysis theory allowed individuals to tell their
problems to a trained individual with the ability to understand their subconscious being and help
resolve the problem. Counselling did not take place immediately until later when research was
carried out to enhance understanding on why some different individual behave in different ways.
This paper will concentrate on a counseling case of a client affected by anxiety resulting from
different relating issues to help her come up with a way of solving the various issues. Outline one
of the common and effective counselling approach used in counselling of anxiety cases, this will
help outline the counseling skills required and enhance an outline of the counselling session that
has been used (David, 2014).
Background information of the interviewee
For the purpose of these assignment, the person selected is a university student in his last year of
study and also doubles as a casual laborer though she doesn’t check in for the job frequently as
it’s required by her employer. As an immigrant in Australia, she has the role of learning the ways
in which people survive in the country together with her family. Her two parents are unemployed
and she doubles up as a student and also a family provider as she is the source of their daily
bread and other related basic support requirements. She has been worrying recently about the
situation facing her family as she has no clear directives of securing a job opportunity or rather
employment after her graduation at the end of the year. The problems she is experiencing has
characterized her as being overwhelmed by anxiety, as a result she saw need of seeking for
counselling support from a qualified counselor. Her general practitioner referred her to the

APPLIED COUNSELLING AND REHABILITATION / COUNSELLING 3
counselor to whom would help her in overcoming her anxiety to coming up with a solution to the
various existing issues that are affecting her.
According to slander (2002), anxiety is what a person can see as dangerous or threatening
without understanding the context in which the feeling comes along. The common symptoms
include lack of sleep, being overwhelmed, excess worries with no clear reasons, insomnia
relating to nightmares incases of any sleep. Psychologists have carried out research to find out
why individuals with anxiety tend to unreasonably become angry and can easily result to harm of
what surrounds them. According to Cuijpers, et al (2014), findings show that individuals filled
with anxiety are filled with doubts of any event that comes their way as they in most cases lack
personal belief about issues they face even if they knew about them before they got anxious.
There are various disorders that are as a result of anxiety with phobic anxiety disorder as a good
example among many others. In some cases it’s normal for an individual to feel anxious relating
to the existing situation or circumstance, example, if a student has been studying well in school
he or she has anxiety to know if the results will favor him or her after seating for an exam. In the
same way, our client in this case is a student who expects that after studying in the university she
will be able to secure a job opportunity to be able to support her family. With both of her parents
being unemployed, she is anxious of what would follow if she is unable to provide especially
now that her mother is unwell. The main counselling approach that is applicable in this case is
REBT – Rational Emotive Behavioral Therapy earlier known as Rational Therapy. This is a
psychotherapy, comprehensive and active form of counselling that the counselor uses to enable
him or her give advice to the client by giving related directives, to do away with their irrational
mind settings and come up with thoughts or a mind setting that can help them (Mayo-Wilson, et
al, 2014).
REBT – Rational Emotive Behavioral Therapy
According to Dr. Albert Ellis (1955), REBT – Rational Emotive Behavioral Therapy of
counselling is the most directive, efficient and effective model of problem solving (Ellis &
Rovira, 2015). The model illustrates that anxiety, depression are not caused by events alone but
it’s in accordance to ones beliefs on the events resulting to those unhealthy and unrealistic
feelings and other relating behaviors of self-denial. REBT is an active directive that only relates
to solving current problems that do not relate with the past or the future but with simply what is
here right now. It’s a solution oriented therapy used by counselors to help their clients in solving

APPLIED COUNSELLING AND REHABILITATION / COUNSELLING 4
cognitive, emotional and other relating behavioral problems (Newman, et al, 2015).This
approach illustrates that emotional suffering concept is not only related to negative view of the
surrounding but also to a human belief system about the surrounding. The framework also
stipulates that the human conscious is controlled by both rational and irrational thinking
tendencies where irrational thoughts results to lack of clear strategies to achieving set goals and
rational thoughts to achievement of the set goals.
Our case represents a situation where the client is overwhelmed by irrational thinking relating to
self-blame on the issue of lack of strategic employment opportunity as well as inadequate
support of her family. This has resulted to extensively low frustration tolerance in her various
efforts, anxiety leading to depression. To enhance this counselling approach, the counselor
understands that one of the main pillars of REBT is irrational thinking patterns, anxiety which
has mainly been identified with the client in this case and relating feelings of human disturbances
(Predescu, et al, 2015). This gives a clear view on why the client feels absolutely out of place
and space to continue hoping for an opportunity to rise for her to earn a living for her family.
Following the active directives of the counselor with a listening ear and an understanding of the
issues resulting to anxiety of the client, at the end the client tends to change her mind to
concentrate on the positive thoughts important for personal development. REBT teaches on
unconditional self-acceptance important for enhancing self-worth to help achieve mental
wellness (Shebib, 2013).
Counselling skills
Counselling process is carried out between the client and the counselor where, the client talks
about her or his problem to the counselor with an aim of getting assistance on how to come up
with the solution to the existing problem. The counselor cannot make a decision on behalf of the
client, he or she cannot give a solution to the problem affecting the client but can only give
advice or view on how the client can solve her problem. As a result, both the client and the
counselor should have skills or rather traits to enhance the counselling process. These traits are
as discussed below;
Counselor traits
Confidentiality. This is a crucial skill of the counselor as he or she is entrusted with all the
information given by the client. According to counselling code of ethics, a counselor should not
reveal any information given to him or her to any other party or discuss it outside the counselling

APPLIED COUNSELLING AND REHABILITATION / COUNSELLING 5
location with a different person if not the client. The counselor in this case cannot use the client’s
information in another session with a different person or even use it as an example.
Attending. Being attending indicates that the counselor is with the client both physically and
psychologically giving the client to confidently share their world with them with no fear. This is
also important as it ensures that the counselor is able to connect with the client through effective
listening of what the client has to say. This is clearly and effectively enhanced through direct eye
contact with the client, facial expressions that shows one is paying attention among others
abbreviated using the term SOLER. In our case the counselor is attending as she understands
client’s level of thinking meaning that she is with her both physically and psychologically.
Empathy. This basically means that the counselor should try to fit in the client’s situation
through understanding of their situations as much as they can. This involves the counselor
forgetting his or her world for some moments to temporarily join that of the client to help
acknowledge their feelings. In our case, the counselor clearly shows empathy where she tells the
client that she understands how she feels and the level of sadness in her mind and heart.
Summarizing. It’s important for a counselor to summarize the sessions to help give a way to
solving the problem. In cases where the session will proceed in the next day, the summary would
be very important to help focus the client. In our case, the counselor made a summary at the end
to enable the client reflect and focus on all that she had said. With enhancement of REBT the
client was able to gain focus and develop rational thinking about how to solve her problems
(Kristensen, et al, 2016).
In the same way, the client should have the ability to communicate with the counselor.
Communication is an important tool for passage of any given information from the client to the
counselor. Ability to listen and understand by the client also ensures that counselling process is
active and in most cases productive (Grillon, et al, 2014).
Structure of the counselling session
The first stage of the counselling session involved creating a good relationship with the client or
rather rapport. The counselor has a role of ensuring before the start of the session, the client is at
ease with her through rapport creation. This has been done through first greeting the client and
welcoming her to the counselling session where the venue has already been set following
counselling venue setting requirements. The counselor also introduces herself by name and also
as the client’s counselor for that session, talks little about the level of confidentiality that will be

APPLIED COUNSELLING AND REHABILITATION / COUNSELLING 6
maintained with an assurance that nobody apart from the two will learn about the information
they share. Creation of rapport at the begging of the counselling process is very important as it
ensures that both the client and the counselor know each other, the clients gains the assurance
and confidence that any information she gives to the counselor cannot be revealed to anybody
else. This is important to enhancing effective counselling process.
Second stage involved the client speaking about her problem while the counselor was listening as
she took less notes with no distraction caused. This gives the client a platform to clear her soul
and mind about the anxiety she is experiencing. As the counselors probes in some questions to
clarify some information from the client it ensures that she does not misunderstand any detail as
she attends to the client. This ensures that the client is able to give all the relevant information
concerning her problems to enable the counselor come up with a favorable counselling approach
to solving the anxiety problem.
Third stage involves the counselor identification of REBT counselling approach to help give a
way to solving the anxiety problem facing the client. Being an active and directive approach to
solving present related issues dealing with thinking pattern capacity, the counselor indirectly
influences the approach as she talks to the client to enable her change her irrational thinking to
rational thinking. Summarizing is done to ensure that the client remains focus towards achieving
the set counselling goals of coming up with a probable solution. At the end, the client is able to
understand the directives, understanding of the counselor to coming up with a solution to solving
the anxiety problem where she decided to remain positive. In this case, the counselling goal to
enhancing the client develop a rational thinking was achieved. To sum it up, effectiveness of a
counselling process is enhanced by the ability of a counselor to create a good rapport and also
ensure that she has the right counselling skills as well as the client’s ability to communicate
(Turner, Slater & Barker, 2014).
Critical Analysis of key issues discussed above
According to philosophers, every human being needs an opportunity to express him or herself
depending on the situation facing him or her at that time and requires time to be solved. As a
result, counselling is an intervention therapy that any individual may require to go through at one
point of his or her life. There are various counselling approaches or rather frameworks that are
used to enhance counselling process. In this case REBT – Rational Emotive Behavioral Therapy
is the framework enhanced to ensure that the client’s problem has a probable solution through

APPLIED COUNSELLING AND REHABILITATION / COUNSELLING 7
the various active directives given by the counselor. This kind of approach is applicable on
present situations not relating to the past and it’s characterized by cognitive theory of counseling
as it relates to the pattern of thinking the client has enhanced (Hallion, et al, 207).
Effective counselling is enhanced by the counselor being impacted with the right counselling
skills that enhances application of the various frameworks and approaches to conducting a
counselling process (Wood, Barker & Turner, 2017). Every counselling process should begin by
rapport creation important in ensuring that there is a clear understanding between the counselor
and the client, also important to enhance trust in the counselor by the client important for
effective counselling process. The counselor has no right to making any decision for the client
unless in extreme cases where the client and his or her associates, friends and family cannot
make the decision. The client should always make her or his decision willingly without pressure
after receiving advice or relating active directives on how to solve the problem from the
counselor (van Deurzen, 2015).
Conclusion
Journal relating to REBT – Rational Emotive Behavioral Therapy illustrated that individuals
overwhelmed by anxiety, depression among other emotional variations have a tendency of
dishonoring their own wishes as they don’t believe in whatever they believed was right for them
( Vinai, et al, 2015). Self-blame and pity with little or no sleep are some of the social symptoms
they enhance. Counselors have a role of ensuring they enhance their client’s level of trust and
confidentiality in them during counselling as it’s the greatest counselling code of ethics among
many others. Before handling any counselling case, the client should first understand the
problems facing the client and the main reason why it’s important to seek counselling.

APPLIED COUNSELLING AND REHABILITATION / COUNSELLING 8
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