Counselling: A Reflective Analysis of Client-Helper Interactions

This essay delves into a student's personal experiences and reflections on counselling, examining their roles as both the client and the helper. As the client, the student explores their initial anxieties, the impact of active listening and validation, and the process of articulating personal feelings. The experience highlighted the importance of feeling heard and understood. Transitioning to the role of the helper, the student reflects on the pressures of providing guidance, the importance of empathy and compassion, and the challenges of separating personal feelings from those of the client. The exercise led to a greater self-awareness of the student's counselling capabilities and the complexities involved in the therapeutic process. The student realized the importance of creating a safe environment for the client to share their feelings and the need for self-awareness and composure in the helper role.

Running head: COUNSELLING 1
Counseling
Student name
Date

COUNSELLING 2
Table of Contents
Part 1: Myself as the Client..................................................................................................................3
Part 2: Myself as the Helper.................................................................................................................5
References............................................................................................................................................6

COUNSELLING 3
Part 1: Myself as the Client
Prior to commencing the audio tape session, I was confident that I would be authentic. I felt
encouraged by the fact that I would get the opportunity to share my fears with someone else. I
would be happy to hear anything that anyone wants to share with me. I was partially nervous
knowing very well that I had to record my feelings and thoughts, which generated elements of self-
doubt as to whether I would overcompensate my dialogue with the pressure I had created within
me. The pressure mainly revolved around how I would be perceived by who was marking the
assignment, sounding unintelligent with how I constructed my thoughts and how my personality
would be perceived by my counterpart. This was a time of mixed feelings – excitement, fear, and
uncertainty.
As the timer started, I initiated conversation as I would in a normal environment and asked
my listener how they were, rather than just launching into what I needed to discuss. Instantly I felt
her warmth as she created a relaxed ambiance with open body language that involved a comfortable
level of effective eye contact. Depending on the information I was exploring, her eyes were
interactive with an endearing smile; indicating to me she was engaging and actively listening to me.
My listener had a nurturing tone, genuine holding style, and positive energy during the
exercise, which made me feel less conscious, understood and control my emotions without a great
amount of anxiety.
I realized that when I have someone who is willing to listen, agree with me and see my point
of view, I feel welcome, loved and above all validated. That validation then empowers me to
continue to verbalize my opinions or observations that I may have reserved for a particular subject.
I continue to volunteer my thoughts and feelings because I have been made to feel that I am right,
which then activates my reactions. This particular environment gives me the opportunity to express
myself freely more than I would do in the company of one who does not agree with my view.

COUNSELLING 4
How I progress to feeling right, is when my listener would effectively paraphrase my
thoughts, for example at 3:18minutes:
Client: (Talking about parents behavior) Then you are looking at their little quirks and habits and
you think …gosh that frustrate me… but then if that's your "ok"…I can't comment. Like if you are
ok with living a simple and boring life….that is my assumption on your life being boring…does
that make sense?
Helper: It does…it does…It sounds like though you’re viewing them from a distance, they have
their way and you have your way which is different…and they irritate you. And it sounds like it is
really hard for you to say that…because they are your parents and you love them…..
Client: yeh….hmm...yep...exactly.
Throughout the interview, I felt comfortable and confident with discussing my feelings, as I
chose a topic that I personally wanted to explore. I did observe that I had a substantial amount of
tension, parallel to that confidence, in my gut. As I articulated my thoughts and felt heard, the
tension diminished. I believe that the tension I felt was the belief I was a bad person for having the
thoughts and feelings that I had towards my parents and worrying how my listener would judge me
and react. Hence wanting to react a few times and refer to me as "a good person" as shown in the
interview at 41:16 minutes:
Helper: How are you feeling?
Client: Umm…I feel good that I have actually verbalized a lot, I think I did not realize…..at the
start of us chatting, it was really on the surface…but now that I have actually verbalized a lot more,
it is almost like a narrative ..I see the story from start middle end…and I feel...I feel good, I feel
confident in how I feel…it has made me reflect on myself that I am actually…umm…a good
person. Despite how I feel…
Helper: It is a lot…because we don’t know each other. You have said so much to me, does that feel
alright to you?

COUNSELLING 5
The ability to control the entire conversation made the experience outstanding. The ease
with which my helper handle my situation gave me assurance that I would overcome the challenge
that I was facing. To a great extent, I realized that sharing a problem is very essential. As they say, a
problem shared is half solved, I felt some ease the moment I had stated my fears. I felt like a big
burden was lifted off my chest. This experience made me feel in control of my situation.
Part 2: Myself as the Helper
At the start of the second audio tape session, I felt some heaviness weighing on me. The fact
that I was the one to give guidance and advice to my client made the whole scenario very tricky for
me. I felt very nervous about the type of responses I would give to my client. More stressing was
the fact that all this was being recorded. I feared that my answers would be awkward and I doubted
if the client would have confidence in me. I was more concerned with how the student would view
my answers. In the previous session, I had been happy because most of her answers were very
acceptable to me and I felt validated and encouraged. In fact, given the kind of conversion we had I
talked more than I should have. The challenge then was I being talkative as I am could I give my
client enough room to also talk more or could I be interjecting every now and then. I wanted to keep
this in mind, to give the client as much time as I could while also responding appropriately to my
client's concerns as is the best to do.
Throughout this session, I realized that I have a caring and a nurturing personality. I also
realized that I am an emphatic individual, I could visualize myself in my client’s situation and this
enabled me to understand her issues clearly. I realized that having compassion is essential. In all
this I came to the realization that I have a strong personality required for a counsellor. In addition to
this I was a good listener. I carefully listened to my client and nodded in agreement in some
instances, I also chipped in a little in the conversation, but most of the time I ensured that I gave my
client time to get her issues off her chest. I was able to study my client’s body language since not all
the feelings of my client were expressed verbally. I also realized that I am a creative problem

COUNSELLING 6
solver. I was able to understand my client’s problem and give appropriate answers. I also realized
that I am good at understanding emotion and reason, and I knew when to apply them. I tried my
best at this time to ensure that the prevailing environment encouraged my client to talk freely
without hiding anything as this was important for this process.
During the interview, I quickly came to the realization that I really needed some self-wrapping in
order to separate my feelings from those of my client. This was essential for me to build a good
relationship with my client. During the interview, I could feel some level of anxiety when my client
posed a question which I honestly did not have an answer. Nevertheless, as I answered her question,
I could see her nodding in agreement and this made me encouraged. Her utterance also confirmed
that she was in agreement with my point of view.
Client: mmm…ok… I see.
Helper: yeah… so …
This conversation gave me more strength to carry on with the conversation as I felt that after all, I
was not all that bad as I thought. I was a good listener, creative and above all I composed. These are
personality traits that I did not know that I had. Through this exercise I was able to learn more about
myself.
Being a helper acting as a counselor was indeed challenging. This is because I faced a lot of
uncertainty. I was not sure what my client would ask me. I was not sure if I had the answers to the
questions. I felt I was as vulnerable just as the client in front of me. The pressure to perform
according to expectation really weighed down on me and for a moment I felt my palms become wet,
my voice also did shake a bit at the start of the session even though I later regained composure. By
the end of this session, I was relieved and felt good. It was rewarded at last because there is that
instance when I felt my client respond "uh huh" "okay". This made me feel that probably the client
learned something new and perhaps felt relieved from the worries that might be there before. I
could feel the tension float away from my client. I had feared what could happen if maybe I did not
understand my client. This would make me feel like a robot. There are circumstances in which a

COUNSELLING 7
client may feel so sad that he or she begins to sob. I feared an instance of this kind even though I
was sure it could not happen at least not today. One thing I learned is that in counseling, no problem
is small or stupid. Some of the problems that I had assumed to be small appeared very important
and relevant for discussion.

COUNSELLING 8
References