Chap 3

Question 1

What is counselling?

Answer 1

a time-limited relationship in which counsellors help clients increase
their ability to deal with the demands of life

An empowerment process
of helping clients to learn skills, deal with
feelings, increase insight, and manage
problems.

Question 2

Counselling is defined and constrained by what three variables?

Answer 2

the needs and wants of the client, the mandate of the counselling setting, and
the expertise or competence of the counsellor

Question 3

What is interviewing?

Answer 3

Acquiring and organizing
relevant information using active listening
skills, including attending, silence, paraphrasing, summarizing, questioning, and empathy

Question 4

Good interviewers are comfortable with what?

Answer 4

silence

Counsellors who listen to their clients give them a chance to air their feelings

Question 5

What is the difference between counselling and psychotherapy?

Answer 5

psychotherapy: Advanced counselling
targeting severe emotional or behavioural
difficulties or disorders.

tends to be more
long term than counselling, with an emphasis on severe emotional and behavioural difficulties or disorders. In contrast, counselling is targeted at assisting clients in managing situational problems

Question 6

What is the most powerful listening skill?

Answer 6

empathy - acknowledges and accepts feelings without judgment

Question 7

What is versatility?

Answer 7

The need for counsellors to
develop a broad range of skills so they can
adapt their approach to fit the distinctive
complexities of each individual and context.

enables counsellors to customize their
approach to diversity of clients

Question 8

To work effectively with diversity, the following key principles apply:

Answer 8

There is no “one-size-fits-all” model of counselling.

Expert counsellors draw on evidence-based best practices and experience as guides in determining which skills and procedures will best meet their clients’ needs.

Adaptation of skills for individual clients and circumstances is required.

Adaptive counsellors know how and when to use skills, and they know when to refrain from using them.

Clients are at different stages of motivation and each stage suggests unique counsellor skills and strategies.

Effective counsellors are “multilingual.” They adapt their use of language and idiom to match the language of their clients.

Question 9

What is trauma-informed practice?

Answer 9

The BC Provincial Mental Health and Substance Use Planning Council (2013) has
identified four essential elements of a trauma-informed approach:

trauma awareness;

emphasis on safety and trustworthiness;

opportunity for choice, collaboration and
connection; and

strengths-based counselling and skill building

Question 10

What are skill and strategy clusters? What four major ones are explored in the text?

Answer 10

Categories of skills and strategies based on their intended purpose or helping activity.

Relationship Building

Exploring & Probing

Empowering and Strength Building

Promoting Change

Question 11

What are relationship-building skills and stratgies?

Answer 11

the basic tools for engaging clients,
developing trust, and defining the purpose of the counselling

Question 12

What are core conditions? Who is this concept associated with?

Answer 12

Warmth, empathy,
positive regard, and genuineness are all necessary for forming a helping relationship and establishing the
rapport and therapeutic alliance needed in a purposeful counselling

Rogers

Question 13

What are congruence and genuineness?

Answer 13

congruence: The capacity to be real
and consistent with clients; matching
behaviour, feelings, and actions.

genuineness: A measure of how
authentic or real one is in a relationship.

Question 14

What is an important part of congruence?

Answer 14

counsellor self-disclosure, particularly with their “here and now” feelings
– requires counsellors to be
“transparent”—without hidden agendas or false demeanours

Question 15

What is empathy?

Answer 15

the most important core condition

The process of accurately
understanding the emotional perspective
of another person and the communication
of this understanding without imposing
one’s own feelings or reactions. In simple terms, it means being able to see the world through the eyes of the client.

Question 16

What is positive regard?

Answer 16

The ability of counsellors
to recognize the inherent worth of people.

Question 17

What is crucial for building relationships and for understanding? What are the components of this skill?

Answer 17

active listening: A term describing a
cluster of skills that are used to increase
the accuracy of understanding.

Attending, using silence, paraphrasing, summarizing, questioning, and showing empathy are the basic skills of active listening.

Question 18

What is attending?

Answer 18

A term used to describe the
way that counsellors communicate to their
clients that they are ready, willing, and
able to listen. Verbal, nonverbal, and attitudinal cues are the essence of effective attending.

Question 19

What two major skills are associated with defining and sustaining the relationship?

Answer 19

contracting and immediacy

Question 20

What are the three types of contracting? What do they refer to?

Answer 20

relationship contracting: Negotiating
the intended purpose of the counselling
relationship, including agreeing on the
expected roles of both counsellor and client.

sessional contracting: An agreement
between counsellor and client regarding
the topic and expected outcome of an
interview or session.

anticipatory contracting: An agreement between counsellors and clients that
plans for predictable events. Anticipatory
contracts provide guidance for counsellors
and answer the question “What should I
do if…?”

Question 21

What is immediacy?

Answer 21

immediacy: A tool for exploring,
evaluating, and deepening counselling
relationships.

It involves a process of evaluation that addresses the quality of the relationship in terms of its contracted objectives. With
immediacy, relationship problems and feelings are addressed before they have a
chance to have a lasting destructive impact.

Question 22

What are four types of exploring and probing skills?

Answer 22

directives: Short statements that provide direction to clients on topics, information, and pace (e.g., “Tell me more”).

simple encouragers: Short phrases
and gestures such as “Tell me more,”
“Goon,” “Uh-huh,” and head nods that
encourage clients to continue with their
stories.

counsellor self-disclosure: Disclosure of personal opinions, feelings, or
anecdotes by counsellors can be a useful tool that models appropriate sharing, and
it might normalize the clients’ feelings or experiences. Counsellor self-disclosure
should be used sparingly, solely to meet the needs of clients in a way that does not shift the focus to the counsellor.

humour: A counselling tool that when
appropriate and well timed, may support
the development of the relationship,
reduce tension, encourage clients to take a
lighter view of their problems, or provide
an alternate perspective on their situation.

Question 23

What are challenging skills?

Answer 23

Skills used to encourage clients to critically evaluate their behaviour and ideas.

Question 24

What are confrontation skills? What is the problem with these?

Answer 24

prods clients to critically examine their actions or consider other
viewpoints. Counsellors may need to provide critical or corrective feedback, identify overlooked strengths, correct distortions, suggest other viewpoints (reframing), or request that clients assume responsibility.

Confrontation skills are most effective when there is a strong relationship of trust and when clients understand and accept the value of their use. Misuse of confrontation can be devastating, destroying all previous efforts.

Question 25

What is action planning?

Answer 25

Helping clients make
changes in their lives; involves setting
goals, identifying strategies for change,
and developing plans for reaching goals.

These changes may include finding new ways of managing feelings, forming strategies
for modifying ways of thinking, or developing new skills or behaviours.

Question 26

What are the four phases of counselling?

Answer 26

(1) preliminary, (2) beginning, (3) action, and (4) ending.

Sequential steps through which counselling tends to evolve.

Question 27

What are the activities and skills of the preliminary phase?

Answer 27

Interview preplanning
Reviewing files and other information sources
Preparing the interview setting

Planning
Establishing self-awareness

Question 28

What are the activities and skills of the beginning stage of counselling?

Answer 28

Establishing a collaborative,
professional working relationship
* Interviewing for understanding
* Evaluating

• Active listening
• Promoting core conditions
• Defining the relationship (contracting)
• Searching for strengths

Question 29

What are the activities and skills of the action stage of counselling?

Answer 29

Goal setting
* Action planning
* Helping clients change behaviour,
manage feelings, and change
unhelpful thinking patterns
* Revising the contract, deepening
therelationship, and managing
communication difficulties
* Evaluating goal progress and the
ongoing relationship

• Teaching
• Information giving
• Supporting
• Confronting
• Action planning

Question 30

What are the activities and skills of the ending phase of counselling?

Answer 30

Ending the helping relationship
* Referring client to other resources
* Evaluating goal achievement

• Giving information
• Supporting

Question 31

What is the therapeutic value of the beginning phase of counselling?

Answer 31

Active listening enables what is
often the most important part of any counselling encounter—the opportunity to tell one’s story and express feelings without interference.

catharsis: An emotional release of
feelings about past or current experiences
that results in a powerful release of
pent-up feelings such as anxiety or anger.

Question 32

What are some client issues that can be barriers to success?

Answer 32

Substance abuse or mental disorders

secondary gain, where the payoffs from maintaining the problem outweigh the benefits of change

unconscious fear of success, because they expect to fail, or because the risks of change are
too frightening to face

view doing so as a sign of weakness

resist being forced
to seek help by family, legal authorities, employers, or other social service agencies

Question 33

What are some counsellor issues that can be barriers to success?

Answer 33

Burnout and Vicarious Trauma

Personal Problems

Loss of Objectivity

Question 34

What are some common counselling errors?

Answer 34

1. Rigidity and use of a “one-size-fits-all” approach
2. Insufficient attention to the counsellor–client relationship
3. Advice giving
4. Absence of core conditions—empathy, unconditional positive regard, and genuineness
5. Missing the opportunities offered by paying attention to the nonverbal channel
6. Loss of objectivity and judgmental responses
7. Pacing problems (too fast, too slow, and inappropriate timing of responses)
8. Inappropriate use of self-disclosure (too much, too little, and poorly timed)
9. Rescuing, false reassurance, and minimizing problems
10. Insensitivity with respect to culture, age, gender, sexual orientation

Question 35

What is pseudo-counselling?

Answer 35

(the illusion of work)

A process in which the worker
and the client engage in a conversation
that is empty and that has no real
meaning. Counselling involves irrelevant
exploration of issues, use of clichés and
patronizing platitudes, intellectual exploration of issues, and avoidance of subjects or feelings that involve pain in favour of “safe” topics.

Question 36

What is rescuing?

Answer 36

Also called band-aiding, this
involves a counsellor’s actions that prevent or protect clients from dealing with
issues or feelings. Rescuing arises from
the counsellor’s need to avoid tension and
keep the session cheerful. Counsellors may become so preoccupied with avoiding or reducing tension that they interfere with their clients’ ability to cope or to solve problems.

Question 37

What are the three major types of rescue behaviour?

Answer 37

Tension reducers: Avoiding tough but otherwise timely and important topics and
feelings by changing the subject, using humour to cut off discussion, or suggesting a coffee break.

Placating: Withholding potentially helpful but critical confrontation or offering
false feedback and empty reassurance.

Behaviours that impede independence: Speaking for clients and doing for clients what they are able to do for themselves.

Question 38

What are communication stoppers? What are the two prime examples of this?

Answer 38

some responses tend to bring communication to a halt.
Rescuing and advice giving are two prime examples

Question 39

What does counsellor error refer to?

Answer 39

counsellors’ clumsy use of skills. Poor technique can lead to missed opportunities and, in extreme cases, can be harmful to clients. For example, counsellors might fail to respond to individual differences (e.g., gender and culture), or they may cling to a rigid “one style fits all” approach to counselling.

Question 40

What uncontrollable variables can lead to counselling barriers?

Answer 40

Large caseloads
Resources may not be available to support clients
Unexpected events and
crises such as illness, death, or job loss
Family and friends who are unprepared to support change

Question 41

What are defence mechanisms?

Answer 41

Mental process or reaction that shields a person from undesirable or unacceptable thoughts, feelings, or conclusions that, if accepted, would create anxiety or challenges to one’s sense of self. Common defence mechanisms include denial, displacement, rationalization, suppression, and regression.

Question 42

What is displacement?

Answer 42

a defence mechanism

Displacement. Transferring feelings to a less threatening person or object. Example:
A man who is angry at himself for losing his money at the casino takes his anger
out on his wife.

Question 43

What is suppression?

Answer 43

a defence mechanism

Suppression. Deliberately avoiding thinking about feelings or thoughts that provoke anxiety.