M3: Strategic Counseling Plan

Question 1

Remedial Counseling

Answer 1

Remedial counseling is used to address a problem. The counselor helps the client to understand his current situation and identify possible remedies. In order to be most effective, clients must take responsibility for their actions.

Question 2

Key elements of the remedial counseling approach include:

Answer 2

Clarify the elements of the problem.

Generate solutions to the problem.

Identify obstacles to the solution(s).

Develop a system or program for preventing recurrence of the problem.

Question 3

Productive Counseling

Answer 3

Productive counseling is appropriate for clients who are financially stable but looking for better ways to use their resources.

Question 4

Key elements of the productive counseling approach include:

Answer 4

Identify ways to achieve goals.

Develop an action plan to achieve goals.

Develop an evaluation system to determine if goals have been achieved.

Implement the action plan.

Monitor progress.

Question 5

Preventive Counseling

Answer 5

Preventive counseling combines the remedial and productive approaches. It is appropriate when a client is financially stable but believes that they will need remediation if they do not make more efficient use of their resources.

Question 6

Key elements of the preventive counseling approach include:

Answer 6

Determine forces that could prevent the client from achieving goals.

Develop a system for achieving goals in the most satisfying manner.

Prepare alternative courses of action before they are needed.

Question 7

Initiating

Answer 7

In this first interaction with the client, counselors should begin to establish the client-counselor relationship. The goal of this stage is to make a client feel comfortable and safe so that they can fully discuss their financial situation with the counselor

Question 8

Exploring

Answer 8

This is the information-gathering stage of the counseling process. In this stage, the counselor may need to employ a variety of communication techniques in order to learn about the client’s needs, goals, and current financial situation.

Question 9

Understanding

Answer 9

In this stage, the counselor and the client generate action plans designed to solve problems or achieve stated goals. At the conclusion of this stage, both the client and the counselor should agree upon a plan of action.

Question 10

Acting

Answer 10

In this stage, either the client or the counselor implement the agreed upon action plan. Also, the counselor and the client should be performing an ongoing evaluation to determine if the action plan is achieving the desired results. If not, the counselor and the client should return to the understanding stage to revise the action plan or possibly return to the exploring stage to revise goals.

Question 11

Visual Learning Style

Answer 11

Visual learners use images to characterize events. These learners process information by seeing, picturing, reflecting, and mirroring data.

Question 12

Auditory Learning Style

Answer 12

Auditory learners use sound to characterize events. These learners process information by hearing, analyzing, and using abstract thinking.

Question 13

Kinesthetic Learning Style

Answer 13

Kinesthetic learners use feelings and/or actions to characterize events. These learners process information by sensing, feeling, and acting.

Question 14

The four principles of motivational interviewing undergird a counseling style

Answer 14

Expresses empathy through communicating that they understand what the client is experiencing.

Develops a sense of discrepancy in the client by identifying the differences between behaviors and intended outcomes.

Rolls with client resistance rather than engaging in it. That is, the counselor allows the client to voice their opinions and concerns without being confrontational.

Supports client self-efficacy by creating hope that change can occur, encouraging the client to identify their own solutions, and helping the client take responsibility for making the necessary changes.

Question 15

Solution-Focused Brief Therapy

Answer 15

Solution-Focused Brief Therapy (SFBT) is a form of psychotherapy that assumes that clients are ready and able to change but need help recognizing how to do so.

Question 16

Key Interventions Related to Motivational Interviewing

Answer 16

Counselors who use the Motivational Interviewing counseling strategy make use of four key skills.

These are asking open-ended questions, affirming, reflective listening, and summarizing.

Question 17

Key Interventions - Open-ended questions

Answer 17

provide more information and opportunities for exploration than closed-ended questions.

Question 18

Key Interventions - Affirming

Answer 18

requires counselors to acknowledge and validate the client in their successes.

Question 19

Key Interventions - Reflective listening

Answer 19

requires the counselor to confirm that they understood what the client is saying

Question 20

Key Interventions - Summarizing is a

Answer 20

reflection of what was said during the session and demonstrates that the counselor has been listening.

Question 21

Major Tenets of Solution-Focused Brief Therapy (SFBT)

Answer 21

“If it’s not broke, don’t fix it.”

“If it works, do more of it.”

“If it’s not working, do something different.”

“Small steps can lead to big changes.”

“The solution is not necessarily directly related to the problem.”

“The language for solution development is different from that needed to describe a problem.”

“No problems happen all of the time, there are always exceptions that can be utilized.”

“The future is both created and negotiable.”

Question 22

Key Interventions Related to SFBT

Answer 22

Counselors who use the SFBT counseling strategy use two key question types as interventions that may be combined. These are the miracle question and scaling questions.

Question 23

The miracle question

Answer 23

asks clients to visualize how their life would be different if the problem did not exist.

Question 24

Scaling questions

Answer 24

ask clients to assess an issue on a scale from 0 to 10. Counselors can use scaling questions to help clients find where they see themselves on any given topic and what steps are required to move the client in a positive direction on the scale.

Question 25

Active listening

Answer 25

a type of listening that includes attending behavior and encouragers, conversation pacing, clarification, and summarizing

Question 26

Appreciative Inquiry (AI)

Answer 26

a counseling strategy that uses the deliberate process of recognizing and affirming past and present strengths and success coupled with an openness to discovering future possibilities.

Question 27

Attending

Answer 27

a listening behavior that occurs when a financial counselor orients themselves physically to the client in such a way that the client knows that she has the counselor’s full attention.

Question 28

Empathy

Answer 28

a habit of mind characterized as “the ability to put oneself into a client’s context and being able to perceive and understand what the client is experiencing.”

Question 29

Encouragers

Answer 29

a listening behavior that prompts clients to continue talking and can be either verbal or non-verbal.

Question 30

Engaging

Answer 30

the process of building and maintaining the counselor-client relationship.

Question 31

Evoking

Answer 31

the process of helping the client figure out why and how they will change.

Question 32

Focusing

Answer 32

the process of concentrating on the client’s issue.

Question 33

Leading

Answer 33

a strategy whereby a counselor uses her own body language to encourage a client to change his body language.

Question 34

Mirroring

Answer 34

a phenomenon that occurs when people are fully engaged in conversation, and their body language unconsciously mirrors each other.

Question 35

Motivational interviewing

Answer 35

a counseling strategy that meets clients where they are in the process of changing their financial behavior.

Question 36

Pacing

Answer 36

a strategy whereby the counselor engages in “patterning verbal and nonverbal behavior to match the client.”

Question 37

Paraphrasing

Answer 37

repeating back the client’s language in the counselor’s own words, thereby indicating active listening and ensuring that the counselor and the client are on the same page.

Question 38

Planning

Answer 38

the process of committing to change and developing a plan to do so.

Question 39

Positive psychology

Answer 39

a counseling strategy that focuses on the development of human strengths and virtues and is based on the idea that five psychological elements contribute to a flourishing life.

Question 40

Preventive counseling

Answer 40

a counseling approach that combines the remedial and productive approaches.

Question 41

Productive counseling

Answer 41

a counseling approach that is appropriate for clients who are financially stable but looking for better ways to use their resources.

Question 42

Remedial counseling

Answer 42

a counseling approach used to address a problem.

Question 43

Restating

Answer 43

using some of the client’s exact language - especially unique turns of phrase - to indicate active listening and help build rapport with the client.

Question 44

Scaling questions

Answer 44

a type of questioning asking clients to assess an issue on a scale from 0 to 10.

Question 45

Solution-Focused Brief Therapy (SFBT)

Answer 45

a counseling strategy that is a form of psychotherapy assuming that clients are ready and able to change, but need help recognizing how to do so.

Question 46

Summarizing

Answer 46

a strategy that occurs when a counselor identifies key components of a session to ensure that she and her client agree on priority topics.